I came across this article in the Guardian which talks about second hand drinking. Have a read of it and tell us what you think of it. Is it a fair and balanced piece of reporting or is it way off the mark and completely wrong? You can find the article at the link below.
An article about second hand/passive drinking
As I can’t feel the feeling of losing one of my children, I feel for the family that lost their daughter. But as I read the first “assumption”as that the driver was from a family of 2nd hand drinking/smoking weed. I read no further. I get what the article is trying to achieve, God bless you. But we can’t as a society assume that we are all a “product of our society” meaning if you have “goody two shoe” parents and Grand Parents that you won’t do bad stuff. When I was younger, I partied with some unexpected participants, 2 of them were Pastors kids and OMG they were wild, one even shot up PCP one night with his cousin (I did not). The other was a dope smoking fean, we even got in an accident while he was driving, but of course talked his way out of rear-ending these two older ladies because he was who he was. My point is that it is a “choice”, there are those that we grow up with, the “normies” that never drank/smoked weed etc. and WHY?? And there are those that experimented because they chose to. And I used to hear it in AA meetings of peoples first drink or smoke/buzz and the feeling they felt that everything was finally lifted off them.(I never had that) And good for them to have that feeling of euphoria. I have a degree in Addition and Prevention Studies for those that want to know and unfortunately in the grips of the disease. I do feel it is a chemical imbalance in our brains and those of us that are the chosen ones have a choice once we finally realize what it is we have. After further research into my own addiction as well as my family, I have come to the conclusion that for me, I never knew the consequences of discipline. I knew right from wrong but growing up I got away with “everything”. So my theory is, that (including myself) those that have tried drinking/weed/whatever at a young age never considered the consequences of what we were doing and/or what would happen because we were never subjected to what the consequences would be, even if we knew what would happen because we got away with it and the more we got away with stuff them more we did and didn’t get caught . Just like drunk driving, they say the average person drives almost 300 times before they get caught driving drunk, WHY? Because they don’t think about it, as smart and/or intelligent as one may be, or educated etc, they don’t think about it because they have never understood the consequences of there action, and I am one of them. I don’t know the answer to any of this, I do know that it is a problem, and we need to educate our children at elementary level to make them “think” that when they are experimenting in the adolescent evils, weather it be sex, alcohol, weed or gangs etc. What we need to teach or young is the consequences of their actions. My 2 cents. Love you all for what you do.
Spot on and I like that there is, in that article a link to the National Association of Children of Alcoholics and from there, the helpline. I wish I’d have had access to this when my children were growing up.
Norah,
There is also Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting, books etc.