Driving me to Drink

Stoss — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:36:45 +0000

The other day in the paper there was an article about a 22 year old English man who died due to liver failure. The doctors were quoted as saying “He had the worst case of cirrhosis they have ever seen”. In fact his alcohol consumption was so bad that he was denied a liver transplant on the basis that it was felt he could never kick the habit enough to treat the new organ properly.

The mother has come out saying that he “made a mistake” and was not “given a fair chance” at a transplant. He also “didn’t know what he was doing … He didn’t know he was going to die.” The articles stated he started drinking at age 11 and binge drinking by 13. I am never one to trample a man’s grave, but does anyone else see anything wrong with this?

Just yesterday I was treated to a wonderful article linking alcohol to cancer. Wow. It sounds like this alcohol stuff is the worst substance on this planet! Killing humans! Causing cancer! We should definitely fear this beverage! It’s almost as bad as dihydrogen monoxide*!

But then, a little bit of my faith in humanity was restored, with an article talking about how a drinking age of 21 in the US is hurting society, not stopping any drinking.

The truth is everything is harmful. You can die from drinking too much water (DHMO?), people are struck by lightning by doing nothing more than standing outside! Hell, LIFE KILLS YOU! Every notice that 100% of lives, end in death?

The problem here is not the substance, whether it be alcohol, pot, tomatoes, red meat… the problem is the over consumption and lack of education about a substance.

I hate to say it, but one thing the government got this one right with the Canadian Food Guide. Having a moderate amount of various foods. Another example where our government succeeds?

Check out these 2 pages:

Health Canada Drug Facts

Drug Enforcement Agency (US) Drug Facts

Canada explains in calm and clear statements what we need to know about drugs. Click on any of the drugs listed and they use phrases like: ”May be addictive”, “Scientific studies are not complete”, “Smoking can lead to bronchitis”.

The US site in contrast uses phrases like: “It’s like playing Russian Roulette.”, “can lead to addiction, impairment and even death.”, “far better not to start, not to experiment, not to tempt fate.”

See a different approach here?

Moderate consumption of any and all substances is fine. Binge drinking is bad, period. We’ve all done it, I hope not at age 13 and hopefully not every day, but we have all done it. Smoking tonnes of pot, while popping e? Yeah, probably not an ideal hourly activity. But remember your 21st Birthday? Yeah, neither do I.

Drugs don’t kill people. Alcohol doesn’t kill people. Red Meat doesn’t kill people. These can kill people. However, having the ability to do something is not the same as actually doing it. We all have abilities we choose not to use. “With great power comes great responsibility” one Peter Parker used to say. Part of having control of our fate is being able to have self control of our fate. Learn your limits and read realistic literature not propaganda. Enjoy a glass of red wine instead of a bottle or 3, have a juicy, medium-rare steak every couple of weeks instead of 2 meals/day, drink 8 glasses of water a day, not 50.

Is it sad that this man died? Absolutely. Was he given a fair chance? Well, if you were giving your liver to someone and you got to choose who, would you have chosen this man? Doctors get paid a lot of money to make these decisions, certainly not something I am going to tackle. Suffice it to say, I don’t think the British healthcare system is broken.

*Please, please, please tell me you know that DHMO is H₂O aka: water!

Stopping abuse 1.5 pints at a time

Stoss — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:44:28 +0000

Yesterday after a meeting in London and a couple of pints I was approached by a 20-something woman who asked if I had a moment. I certainly did have a moment, so here is our (annotated and slightly abridged) conversation:

Woman – “I work for Amnesty International and they are doing a £27,000 ($50,000 CDN) charity drive to raise money. Do you feel that women being beaten and raped is a problem?”

Now, at this point what could I have said? I mean, honestly, did she want me to say “no”? If this was some religion I probably would have, just because it is fun to debate with religion, however I played the innocent and said “yes”.

Woman – “Were you aware that up until recently it was not a criminal offense for a woman to be beaten unless the woman filed a formal complaint? That means that a man could beat a woman in front of a police officer and the officer could do nothing about it.”

This I had a hard time believing. I truly believe if an officer was watching you being punched by someone he would help you, but then again this is England. However I nodded politely and looked “shocked”.

Woman – “Amnesty International was instrumental in stopping this and now abused woman have better avenues for protecting themselves.”

I could have corrected her and said: “No, they have better avenues for prosecuting/removing the abuse once it is done”, however I let her continue.

Woman – “What are you in Leicester Square for?”

Me – “I had a meeting earlier today, and had a couple pints with a coworker and I am now waiting to meet a friend for dinner.”

Woman – ”Interesting you say pints…”

Interesting? That isn’t interesting, it is a loose segue into your question about how I spend my money… oh and also if you were to ask ask any man on a Wednesday night in England what he was doing, the word “pints” is bound to be in there.

“… because for just the price of 1.5 pints a month you can support this important cause.”

Two things here:

“What cause? You have told me that you already “solved” the only problem you mentioned to me.”
“But then I would have 1.5 pints less each month, you bitch!”

I let this slide, and I was glad because this is where it gets fun!

Me – “Do you have some literature I could read on this topic? I am not really familiar with Amnestity International…” ( A bit of a lie really, but she doesn’t know) “… and I would like to learn more”

Woman – “Yes, and for just £0.20 a day you can receive all the details on our organization”

Me – “I don’t think I will be donating today, but I would love to read more on…”

Woman – “Well, due to the cost we cannot just give out literature.”

Me – (jaw dropped, a charity that doesn’t want to promote themselves?) “Ok, do you have a website I could view?”

And here my friends was my favourite part of the conversation… I want to point out that this next line is the factual quote that this woman said to me:

Woman – “By the time you view our website 260 women in the UK will be raped.”

I want to pause here to apologize to those exactly 260 women that were raped between yesterday at 6pm and today at 9:30am. I really am sorry that you had to be raped due to my neglect in not donating 1.5 pints to this cause. I wish you all the best and hope you receive the treatment and care you deserve.

My immediate response was this:

Me – “Sorry, but really you can say that about anything: 1250 African children will starve by the time I view your website, 180 Big Macs will be consumed in Brighton by the time I view your website… That really isn’t an argument for you not to give me the web address.”

She of course was not amused at my apparent disdain for her attempt at guilt. It was at this point I realized this woman was working on commision and that the facade of actually caring for these women was replaced with the greed for her portion of the £27,000 Amnesty has for this endevour.

Here is where I smiled and wished her good luck and we parted ways. It is sad that the only mechanism this woman had was a guilt trip about raped women to try and convince me her charity was worth supporting. It is also sad she tried to con me out of 1.5 pints, so she could get money to buy herself pints.

For more information on Amnesty, I googled this: http://www.amnesty.org/

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Driving me to Drink

Stopping abuse 1.5 pints at a time