Smoking

Councilors in Perth, Scotland have proposed establishing an alcoholic den in which the city’s alcoholics could be round up and kept away from public view. A BBC article on the subject spells out the concerns of the local government, “Councilors are concerned they give a bad impression of the area to visitors and can be frightening to local people.”

In the same article, Councilor Willie Robertson, convener of the community safety committee, is quoted as saying “So it's a social problem that has to be dealt with." I would hate to see this guy’s living quarters if his idea of addressing a problem is just sweeping the mess under the rug. If you ask me, the real social problem is that as society our love of alcohol is greater than our common sense. It’s the same here in the States, just look at the current debate over minimum drinking age stirred up again by the Amethyst Initiative, a group of educators that feel the best way to deal with underage drinking is to lower the drinking age!

So what is next for Perth for the sake of appearance and tourism, bringing back the opium dens?

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So now we get to the last and most difficult installment (because I promised solutions) of my series on alcohol and violence. If you haven't done so I suggest going back and reading part one and two. Laying a little groundwork first, have you ever noticed how there are particular subjects our media will almost fall over itself to mention in a negative light? Here’s a good example that doesn’t just border absurdity, as you can see it actually crashes across the border.

EL PASO, Texas — Two young Mexican children were killed, and their mother and two sisters were hospitalized Friday after a sport utility vehicle ran over a family while speeding toward a border crossing, authorities said. The SUV had a bloodied windshield and was dragging a baby stroller underneath when it stopped at a border checkpoint in the border town of El Paso, said Roger Maier, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol ~ Fox News

Not until the fourth paragraph of this story are we informed that this bloodthirsty SUV even has a driver, much less that he was probably DRUNK!

Just do a Google search on “SUV Kills” and it’s hard not to notice that the media has decided that SUV=Bad. I wish the same thing could be said for the way they report the violence in which alcohol plays a factor. According to a University of Ohio study, even though alcohol is a contributing factor in at least a third of most accidents and crimes its complicity is vastly under-reported.

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My favorite Sci-fi blog io9 has provided the starting point for the second part in my series on the relationship between alcohol and violence entitled Beverages of Mass Destruction. Citing a Canadian study, How to Build a Violent World in One Easy Step suggests the quickest way to create a dystopia is to just add alcohol.

For every 1,000 litres of alcohol sold in stores (there were no stats for what got sold in bars), numbers of violent assaults and deaths nearby increased by 13%. For young people, the risk increased by 21%. One could easily imagine a dystopian future where cities zone certain "undesirable" areas for more liquor stores, as a way of trimming down or crippling the population there. ~ io9

The study is incomplete, but does it really take a bunch of scientists to figure out that an increase in public alcohol consumption will be followed by an increase in violence? I guess what is more enlightening are those that predictably come to the defense of alcohol in the comments section.

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Unfortunately long before they become an adult, most people have a personal and visceral understanding of the definition of a “mean drunk”.

With alcohol a factor in at least a third (reported) of all violent crime in the US and even more in some countries, one need not be a statistician to be able to correlate the obvious association between alcohol and violence. The same beer goggles that make us indiscriminately promiscuous can also lower the civilized inhibition that usually prevents aggressive and violent impulsive behavior.

I don’t think this fact comes as a surprise to the public, politicians, and scientists, but in today’s world of protest and mobilization the lackadaisical response to this violence is enigmatic.

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You had a few drinks and don’t want others to know you did? Your spouse hates smell of cigarettes in your breath… AntiPoleez starts working immediately on completely eliminating the unwanted odor and will solve your problem in less then a minute. ~ Antipoleez.com

I was alerted to this “super” breath freshener by a TDA reader and at first glance thought I might find myself in opposition to the product, the marketing tactics in particular. Seems as if it is being promoted as a way to avoid DUI charges or being caught intoxicated. Yeah, there is a warning not to drink and drive on the website but the name and busty blonde cop are definitely meant to convey a tacit message (more than one). The youngsters toasting the product with their wine glasses raised high and the fact that it is sold in a “frat pack” quantity just reinforced my opinion.

But do I oppose the product? Nah, not really.

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According to a report published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research cigarettes which are often used as a crutch during the first year of recovery actually stifles critical mental functions. The Science Daily summarizes the report and brings out a few choice tidbits about the relation between smoking, alcohol, and addiction.

I know my half-pack habit a day went to two packs* after I quit drinking, but I didn’t realize that this habit I thought kept me sane may have actually been hampering my recovery. (I had almost quit smoking by the time I hit rock bottom because I could not afford smokes AND alcohol, and you know what had to come first!)

“Alcoholics frequently smoke. Anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of individuals in North America who seek alcoholism treatment are also chronic smokers. New findings indicate that smoking may interfere with alcoholics' neurocognitive recovery during their first six to nine months of abstinence from alcohol.”

One of the authors of the study, Timothy C. Durazzo, also gave a possible explanation for something I have heard all my life, “I only drink when I smoke”.

"Nicotine and alcohol may enhance each other's rewarding properties; nicotine may decrease some of alcohol's negative effects on cognition and motor incoordination; paired use of nicotine and alcohol may produce a strong association between the two substances such that the use of one leads to cravings for the other; and there may exist a genetic vulnerability for concurrent active cigarette smoking and alcohol dependence."

What this study boils down to is that smoking doesn’t necessarily increase the chance of relapse, but it definitely hobbles mental efficiency and higher-level reasoning and problem-solving abilities which are detrimental to anyone who is at a point in life where they can use all the help they can get.

My opinion, which was recently appraised at $.03 slightly above the my-two-cents average, is not to worry about this study. If you haven’t started smoking yet, don’t let the old recovery pros in the meetings and groups lure you into it. If you are already a smoker, concentrate on quitting drinking first and smoking only after you have gained solid footing in your recovery.

*For the record, I have been smoke free since 2003!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it AngryPenguin!

Just kidding, as a one-time smoker myself I know personally just how hard it is to quit, but I wanted to make a point. The AngryPenguin has a blog up about the crass manner in which society treats smokers. An Australian, she is even harsher in her criticism of her own country’s anti-smoking lobby. I usually don’t feature smoking addiction content on The Discovering Alcoholic but there was something in this story that caught my attention. At first it was the almost belligerent manner in which she described how alcoholics were coddled by society:

“It is extremely sad and mean that it has become the great danger - the most maligned of activities. Beer-swilling men who fall down dead drunk after beating their children and raping their wives are less criticised than smokers. Alcoholics are nurtured by society, given sympathy and treated as people who have a sickness. It is never their fault. Not even the massive collateral damage left in their booze-stewed wake.~AngryPenguin”

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