ALCOHOL CONFORMITY INTRODUCTION
By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2021 All Rights Reserved.
I wrote "Alcohol Conformity" back in 2014. For me it is a very bittersweet article. It was the final chapter in a trilogy of work I had written that year. It supported my other articles "Parenting License" and "The End of War."
I had hoped to partner with organizations around the world with the release but nobody cared. These same organizations later would come to support families that lost family members to alcohol and the use of it.
One horrific event occurred two years after reaching out to a certain Canadian organization. In my province of Saskatchewan, Jordan Van De Vorst, his wife Chandra, and their two children, Miguire and Kamryn, a complete family, were all killed by a female drunk driver in January of 2016.
Since 2019, a large black-and-red sundial decorated with the names of victims of impaired driving crashes now stands on the lawn outside of Saskatoon City Hall. The monument was created by the same organization I reached out to five years earlier in collaboration with families who had lost loved ones due to impaired driving including the Van De Vorst family.
I'm now just adding this story to https://yohnke.com as I've had a hard time coping. I felt then and still feel now that if I could have somehow convinced that organization to partner with my message, that the Van De Vorst names and many others wouldn't be on that monument today.
I hope "Alcohol Conformity" doesn't fall upon deaf ears or uncaring minds any longer. I hope that people will embrace it. We must advocate for this.
The answers are within reach to create world peace and to live happy, fulfilling lives. It truly is attainable!
- Miles Patrick Yohnke, April 15, 2021
ALCOHOL CONFORMITY
By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2014 All Rights Reserved.
Why does our culture glamorize alcohol?
How did alcoholic beverages become socially acceptable? Even certain drinks for example, have become symbols of national identity. How did this happen? How did alcohol, a highly addictive and deadly beverage, become so socially acceptable?
Marketing and advertising. It has one goal and one goal only. And that is to make a product so attractive that the consumer feels a need or desire to possess it in order to feel accepted or popular.
During 2009, alcohol companies in the United States alone spent over $17 billion in marketing, exposing children and their families to their media blitz en masse. Kids are an important demographic to marketers.
An explicit myth. Companies try to make people feel better about themselves if they use alcohol. Make them think that people will like them better or think they're more fun and even more cool. They manipulate human beings with over-sensationalized lifestyle presentations of what it is like living with the aid of alcohol.
It has become socially acceptable as an easy way for people to overcome their shyness. People are led to believe that they are endearing themselves to the in crowd. Alcohol use is present at most college social functions, and many students view college as a place to drink excessively. Drinking to be crazy, to have stories to tell the next day.
Selling 'parties' not beer. Many beer companies use this marketing tactic at music concerts, sporting events and such. Ambulance, police and hospital workers have noticed a significant increase in incidents around these events.
Exploitation of our youth. Exploitation of adults. Exploitation to all mankind. Drinking has become a major health and social problem.
Human beings harbouring haunted memories. Trapped every single second. Waiting for their own personalized fob card to unlock their mind.
Evidence shows that alcohol use increases the occurrence and severity of domestic violence. Children cannot predict how their parents will act while intoxicated. What a scary scenario for a child to never know when they could be attacked. Children tormented by their parents' alcohol abuse. They often experience specific lifestyle or behavioural problems as an after-effect.
There are many cases of sexual abuse. These poor, small life forms. Broken eyes. Broken hearts. Children tormented with shame and guilt. Their stories are chilling and all too often they become like their creators.
We have seen this through generations of families.
When are we going to change this consciousness? Morally, don't we have a
responsibility?
Police report in certain cities that alcohol accounts for 60 percent of their calls. In the United States alone, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), estimates that 17,941 people died in 2006 from alcohol-related collisions, representing 40 percent of total traffic deaths in the U.S. The NHTSA states that 275,000 people were injured in alcohol-related accidents in 2003.
How many lives have we lost, how many lives have been changed? Leaving huge voids in the hearts and lives of families and loved ones, all because of a senseless act. And not to mention the staggering cost, this major burden placed upon society.
We have movies like the Hangover, a film trilogy for example, that in 2014
became the biggest R-rated movie to-date. All it promotes is self-destructive behaviour. Acting out like Godless half-minds. There is no moral value in movies with these themes. These movies potentially teach that self-destructive behaviour is acceptable. Often we hear people sharing their own stories about 'wild days' of their past as if it should be something to be proud of.
We have as a society, glamorized celebrities and their dysfunctions. That it is somehow exciting or even cool. If you'd ask any one of them they'd tell you that it isn't fascinating. That with their loneliness, they can barely cope with their own existence. Isn't that fascinating? It's just sad. Many die at an early age or struggle throughout their whole lives. This is human life. This is the reality, not only for celebrities, but for a high percentage of human beings.
We are sold on the vision of a great evening out on the town. Whether it be live music clubs or dance clubs. We get all dressed up to start the night looking our best, but then when the alcohol takes effect, often towards the night's end, there is nothing beautiful left about the person. All the troubles that they have been harbouring inwardly are now on display for all
to see.
Human beings are manipulated on how to think. We have seen this continuous conformity for generations. When will we have the intelligence and the courage to stop this deception, this manipulation, this facade?
What does conformity mean? To be similar to or the same as something. To obey or agree with something. To do what other people do. To behave in a way that is accepted by most people. Behaving like this displays to the world that you have the cerebral potentiality of a lobotomized angleworm. It is just plain dumb.
We have decision-making abilities. Look what was done with the tobacco industry. Look at what occurred to the fur industry. Human beings like you and I made decisions that this tolerance wasn't acceptable any longer. Now it is time with alcohol.
I'd like a glass of red wine. What would replace that statement?
For one, the remarkable tastes, flavours, health and healing properties of tea.
What if tea companies spent the billions that alcohol companies do in advertising? What if they spent their monies presenting the many rituals connected with the enjoyment of tea and the path toward an enlightened life. The tremendous health benefits. That tea ceremonies are complex and intricate and take a number of different forms depending on country of origin, but they all teach humility and discipline.
What if? What would we become? If we all knew the different forms of teas. Loose leaf tea. Bagged tea. The many countries and their customs, from the profoundly intricate Japanese tea ceremony to the Chinese tea-drinking customs just to name a few.
Rethinking drinking. Certain music and dance clubs around the world have become non-alcoholic. They have discovered that a large demographic of people want to savour the music and the social aspect of it soberly. They are comfortable within their own inner landscape.
These are examples of the proper models one can follow. Let us cement this philosophy into the consciousness of mankind. Let us glamorize this lifestyle using these sobering thoughts.
For there is not one good thing that has or ever will come out of alcohol use or abuse. Mood swings, hangovers, violence and hurt. Acting like uneducated baboons, using words not found in the Bible. Broken families. Lives shattered. Mental, physical and sexual abuse. There is nothing cool in any form regarding alcohol.
We could take back the flowers from those makeshift memorials at crash sites. We could remove the hands from those most beautiful innocent faces. We could take back the words that we wished had never left our mouths. We could discard this degenerative vulgarity that has become our national identity.
To watch 'The Spiritual Consequences of Alcohol Consumption' - a powerful 4-minute video, please click here. (Disclaimer: I do not support psychedelics. Please read my article: "Legalize Healthy Living.")
Parenting License
The End Of War
Legalize Healthy Living