Alcoholism Maybe, and Is, a Disease!
But the Decision to Drink Alcohol Is a Choice People Make, Is It Not?
Dr. Pasha
Alcoholism maybe a disease, and it is.
And there is absolutely, positively no stigma attached to being ill with a disease.
But the decision to drink, or not to drink, is at least partially a choice on the part of Human Beings.
Aided, and abetted, and, yes, Enabled, by all kinds of others.
These are the people in the Get-Away Cars, whom young people call their Friends, and they are. These Friends put all kinds of Pressure on young people to drink: To make that Fatal Decision, to go with that Sad Choice.
The Choice to Drink.
They tease them; they cajole them; they taunt and mock them; and they get angry and upset with them. And, in general, they make young people’s life miserable till they accept that Poisoned Chalice – cup is what that word means – from their hands and pour it down their pure and innocent and unsuspecting throat.
After, of course, these young people have choked and gagged and thrown up and nearly died a million times.
After that, it is all Downhill. The Beast has now tasted blood and there is no turning back now.
It is almost literally very hard to put that Genie Back in the Bottle now!
Tell me It Ai’nt So!
Then, after people have made these Decisions -- and this deathly Choice -- to self-annihilate, and after all these so-called Friends in Get Away Cars have pressured them in all kinds of ways, and safely left the Crime Scene they helped to create, Genes Kick In.
Is it more or less accurate to say that?
The body now does its own science, and its own investigative police work, and finds the right Gene Cell to place these young people in.
They are now Prisoner. They are Inmate # X999, or Inmate something else, in the grip of their Inherited Gene Power.
But the Gene Lock-Up System did not come to get them. It did not raid their home with guns drawn and barrels blazing. It did not kidnap them from their bed.
The fact is they left the door open. They hung a sign saying they were available. And all those Friends in the Get Away Cars did the rest.
So, to the extent, no matter how little, they Made a Choice. They Made a Decision.
The Decision To Drink.
The Choice to Give in to Pressure.
The Decision not to upset or disappoint or let down their friends.
All Them People in all them Get Away Cars who took off, who fled the Crime Scene, the moment they knew these young people were hooked.
And the moment they heard the Principal’s Footsteps.
The moment they saw the Dark Shadow of an Adult approaching the Crime Scene they helped to create.
Now, more or less, those who drink are left alone. To face the consequences of the Diabolical Decision they made: To Take Their First Drink!
They are now not all that different from that Young Female who is left holding the seeds of her Pregnancy, in inducing which she may or may not have been a willing participant of some sort.
The seeds will germinate and grow and show their power as time goes by.
So, yes, Alcoholism is a Disease. No question about that.
And, no, there is No Stigma whatsoever attached to falling ill and developing a disease.
But, at the same time, not to investigate, or at least not to wonder about, our own role as Human Choosers and Decision Makers in courting that Disease, and how we may have participated in Choosing and Decision Making in invoking that Disease on Ourselves or Others, is to Turn Our Back on Reality.
It is Playing Ostrich: Burying Our Head in the Sand and believing no one will see us.
It is Pulling the Trigger in the belief that the Gun Is Not Loaded.
It is Playing Russian Roulette!
It is Doing a Turtle: Pulling Our Head Inside the Shell and thinking we are now safe and untouchable.
It is Standing, dressed in a dark jacket, in a dark night, in the middle of an Interstate Superhighway, in the face of oncoming traffic, thinking that the Two Headlights we see at the distance, coming at us at breakneck speed, are actually Two Motorcycles and the Two Riders will see us and they will pass us on either side.
So, yes, Alcoholism is a Disease. And these young people may very well be a Victim: helplessly floating on the current of powerful forces they have no ability to control.
But, at some point, They Made a Decision.
And so did those who call themselves their Friends. And whom they call their Friends. They aided and abetted and enabled these young people to make that decision.
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