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Sample Student Essay—Cause-Effect—Viewpoints essay “Binge Drinking is a Normal Impulse”

 

“I bet you can’t have just one”

                If you found yourself walking the streets of Britain amidst friends at midnight and wanted to grab a pint of beer at a local pub you would be unable to do so.  Before 2005, Britain’s pubs closed down at 11 P.M. sharp.  A national debate arose when New Labour’s regime, a left democratic socialist party, proposed the liberation of pub hours while suggesting a policy that allowed for 24-hour drinking.  Britain’s judges, police, politicians, and other influential groups balked at the policy fearing binge drinking would increase. In Jennie Bristow’s essay “Binge drinking is a normal impulse” she asks the question, so what?  “An occasional binge, however, is a good way for people to their inhibitions and escape – for a short time—from their everyday lives” (263).  Bristow feels the occasional drinking binge is normal and even harmless for people in today’s society.  In her argument she brings up the point “For all the government’s dire warnings about the rising rates of liver cirrhosis and general alcohol-related health calamities, we should remember.  .  . we are living longer and healthier lives than ever before” (263).  While I sometimes agree, appreciate and even admire the honesty of her opinion, I don’t believe she is entirely correct.  I think we are living longer and heather lives, not because alcohol is harmless, but simply because of the technological advancement and increased accessibility to health care.  I also think her stance that binge drinking is a normal and harmless activity is due to overconfidence in the intelligence and self-control possessed by the average person and undermines the significance and consequences of alcoholism. 

Why do people drink? “Not because they think that wine goes better with dinner than Rinena {a British fruit drink}; not because they want to relax a little after a hard day’s white collar work; not because they believe the studies about a glass of red being good for their hearts.  .  . but because they want to get off the plane of existence that is normal, humdrum, everyday life, and into that parallel universe of inebriation” (264).  This is not a new concept. Research suggest Mayans often took hallucinogenic mushrooms before creating artistic paintings, the Egyptians were quite fond of the nicotine and coco plant while writing hieroglyphs,  the ancient Chinese were among the first civilization not only to culture but to also admire the effects of cannabis and it’s no secret the Greeks regarded wine a sacred substance considered an everyday necessity.  Life is a mysteriously dark adventure, sometimes so unbearably beautiful our minds find it unable to comprehend and therefore we find a way to dull this unfathomable existence of ours.  All cultures have historically sought and used substances to escape or to further explore this profound experience of being alive on earth. 

Unfortunately it is in our time, our current society where the words “addiction” and “abuse” are associated with drug use.  It’s not hard to understand why alcohol is today’s drug of choice.  And make no mistake, alcohol is a drug. Maybe even the smoothest, devilishly, see through poison there is that’s attributed to stoke, heart disease, liver cancer, dementia, memory loss, and even brain shrinkage when abused.  Unfortunately what makes alcohol now more appealing than the others today is it is legal. The Webster dictionary defines legal as In conformity with or permitted by law. A person can drink alcohol without suffering the legal consequences or shame.  Healthcare professionals, educators, politicians and parents alike can partake in the much needed inebriation, yet abiding by all the rules of society, still consciously or unconsciously portray a role-model existence. I guarantee at this moment there is a population of previous disco dancers, who are now lucrative lawyers, snorting lines of cocaine and writing briefs while listening to “Can’t you hear me knocking” by the Rolling Stones. There are many reformed hippies, now responsible educated English teachers, who are smoking a joint and listening to “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers in the comforts of their backyards. But unfortunately today the even safer bet to escape the absurdity of everyday life is to just pour a little booze on the rocks.  Drug tests need not apply. Alcohol leaves your system faster than any other drug and if pulled over with a fifth a Seagram’s still in a brown sack, you are free to go. You can sit on the couch and watch T.V. nursing your third scotch on the rocks and when a disturbing meth public announcement comes on say to yourself “wow those people are messed up.” Life is not easy and even those who possess the envied genes which are incapable of addiction, may crave an alcoholic beverage after a boring yet ironically entertaining 3 hour experience at the D.M.V.  Some people drink, some people do drugs and some people eat but we all have some way in which we escape our little worlds but for Bristow to say these little binders are harmless was a mistake.

I respect Bristow’s viewpoint that since alcohol is legal then the government shouldn’t be able to someone when and how much they can drink;  however, I believe she made the mistake of not once acknowledging the harmful effects of alcohol.  “For the rest of us, for whom the odd bender is not a political statement but a welcome fact of life, we should resist the temptation to buy into the cult of ‘responsible drinking’ and remember what we are doing in the pub in the first place” (265) In this sentence Bristow is speaking for the small population whom rarely get drunk, and therefore tells them its ok to not buy into the responsible drinking all the time.  But does she really know the effects these people may face?  The consequences could be marital problems, DUI’s, domestic abuse, or maybe even closet addiction these people may experience. Has she herself experienced any negative effects of alcohol first hand?  She makes the mistake of assuming most people have the self-control to manage occasional binders--that all people were born with perfect brains capable of resisting addiction and are equipped with the tools to, after a long night of drinking, carry on as sober responsible adults.  This is not the case for many people and many people’s families.

Bristow contends that “what we . . . have is a society in which sometimes, and for a variety of reason, people like to get drunk” (264). While many families today are plagued with severe drug addiction, such as meth, and experience the horrific consequences of abuse, poverty, dissociation, and regret.   I myself was lucky enough to be born into a family of seemingly intelligent, caring, hardworking, prosperous, functional alcoholics.  Stemming from my great grandparents, both sets of my grandparent, as well as my parents, have the claws of alcoholism deeply embedded in them.  In my family the use of alcohol equates to a fun and carefree lifestyle that you are fully expected to participate in yet you are also assumed to be a maintaining, law abiding, and productive member of society.  All negative experiences and memories associated with alcohol are not to be discussed and are to be swept under the rug. As I am the only child, I have no benchmarks in which to judge my success or failure regarding my own personal love affair with alcohol. 

I received an MIP a “minor in possession of alcohol” ticket when I was twenty and the police called my mom who worked for the police department to come pick me up; perfect. As she hypocritically scolded me the whole way home, I realized she was not worried about her only daughter’s alcohol consumption or abuse she may well have contributed to.  She was only worried about her reputation and how it might affect her as a member of society and employee of the Coeur d’ Alene Police Department. Five years later I received a much more serious DUI “driving under the influence” citation.  My mother found out by seeing my mug shot posted up on the wall the next morning at work among the other drunk drivers the night before; perfect. She refused to talk to me for days and then finally showed up at my house with the police report and a few attorneys’ phone numbers. I wasn’t the first in my family to receive this citation and as always the causes are not to be discussed but the consequences minimized, dealt with and forgotten about. It was chalked up to I’m young, young people make mistakes, it’s normal behavior and it was never mentioned in my family that I might have a little bit of problem. Never underestimate the power of denial. I accept the cause and often excitedly participate in lapses of inebriation, but I know all too well the effects of “occasional binge drinking” and let me tell you, it is anything but harmless.

Thankfully I was never physically or sexually abused as many like me raised in an alcoholic environment probably have been; I do however know firsthand the bone crushing anxiety as well as the emotional abuse that accompanies being a child raised by an adult who sufferers from alcoholism. I have seen up close the severe personality changes associated with alcohol. Parents can be responsible loving adults most the time but at any moment can become a child themselves.  Both of my parents drink almost a half case of beer a night. My dad will sometimes drink even more.   I was raised by him without my mom around. I remember being in the fourth grade and having to learn how to drive a stick shift because my dad was too drunk to be able to do so.  I remember him passing out on the couch and somehow, understanding the importance of him showing up at work in the morning, bringing his alarm clock from his bedroom to reset the time on the coffee table by his head. I was in the fourth grade. I was far too young and should have been mentally incapable to experience the anxiety and stress I did, but I did and I did it alone. “What is it about getting drunk that today’s society finds so hard to handle? It isn’t as though we live in a nation of feckless alcoholics, too sodden to pour themselves out of bed and into work in the morning (263).  I know by Bristow’s words she has never personally experienced the negative effects of alcohol as a young girl.  I did.  This conjoined affair my parents have with alcohol, while neither one to this day would ever admit it, led to my parents’ divorce. I refer to it as an “affair” because they both love alcohol more than they loved each other; they love it more than they love themselves, and as much as I hate to say it, sometimes love it more than they love me.  I am an only sometimes lonely product of this love and while my conclusion is conflicting and unknown, it is most importantly unresolved.

Personally my favorite definition of “unresolved “is: If a problem or difficulty is unresolved, no satisfactory solution or conclusion has been found to it.  I believe this definition expresses hope and leaves the opportunity for a solution to be found.  From reading Jennie Bristow’s essay I find myself left with three complete conflicting thoughts.  One, let us entertain our civil liberties as individuals and exercise our right to eat, drink and be merry. Two, this woman is completely ignorant in her ramblings of alcohol abuse, and while condescendingly yet wittingly remarks about mild drunkenness, has never seen the full eclipse of its darkness.  “So let’s leave the official preoccupations with when we drink, how much we drink and why we drink to the medics, judges, politicians and policemen, and carry on drinking as we choose” (265).  Amen lady. But third, if it wasn’t for the politicians, policemen and judges, who would care to control or investigate the effects and consequences of alcohol abuse? While I continue to rebel against them, I find myself more and more respecting this New Labour’s Regime for their passion and optimistic strive to develop a society in which no inebriation is needed. In another life I imagine myself a Greek goddess wearing only the finest deep green silk dress and holding a goblet of perfect red in my attractive arm exuberantly decorating thick gold bracelets as I quietly and gracefully dangle my perfectly delicate feet into the finest bath.  I could have been a beautiful Egyptian woman gazing admiringly at the outstanding hallucinogenic colors of an Egyptian sunset  but in contrast to the pale sand continue to be even more captivated still by my husband’s handsome ability to draw and forecast the tide of the moon.  Since I was born to be neither of these girls, I guess I’ll just play is safe and continue to maintain my sullen sanity or insanity by occasionally pouring a little booze on the rocks.

 

Bristow, Jennie “Binge Drinking Is A Normal Impulse.” Viewpoints. Ed. W. Royce Adams, 7th ed. Boston, Wadsworth, 2010. (262-65)