I am duty bound to be here, for there is none other I know who can give a first-hand, intimate and personal account of alcoholism, drug abuse and irresponsible youth life.
Most of my fellow sufferers are either too involved with our disease, to be invited or, if even invited, to bother to accept your invitation. The rest are dead. Those in-between are too weakened to offer anything useful on this occasion. Since my breed is rare, survivors I mean, I crave your indulgence to spare a few minutes for my account of my personal knowledge of these all- too-real tragic phenomena that are laying to waste too many brilliant and talented people.
In my experience, I find that dictionaries almost never offer the definitions you need when you need them. Last night was no exception as I tried to no avail to find the definitions of “alcoholism”, of “drug abuse” or of “irresponsible youth life”. I have therefore elected to provide working definitions for the three phenomena. For our purpose today, I dare to define “alcoholism” as “the continuous excessive use of and consequent dependence on alcohol, to the extent that it alters behavior, warps reality and endangers one’s life and/or that of others”. “Drug abuse, I plead to define as “the continuous and persistent misuse and use of medication and drugs, prescription and illicit, to induce temporary euphoric effects (a high), which use subsequently has to be maintained or increased, over time, in order to attain said hallucinatory effects” Finally, let us agree to define “irresponsible youth life” as “any behavior that is inconsistent with social mores and expectation”. Ladies and gentlemen, if no one is begrudging my operational definitions shall I then quickly move on to attempt to discuss their causes. Like many phenomena, the causes are many, diverse and varied.
“Alcoholism may be caused by peer pressure, acquiesced-to by apparent social acceptability or indifference and may be ignited by a misguided but widely held belief that it provides relief albeit temporary from nagging problems. There is also no accounting for the role of pure and naked puerile and youthful adventurism, normally starting with casual and occasional drinking euphemized as ‘social drinking’ and finally leading into full-fledged alcoholism. Same can be said of drug abuse. It starts as just a try, then another and soon turns into a craving and finally dependence, maybe not in that order.
Irresponsible youth life can be caused by any of the aforementioned or by pure truancy or delinquency. It may also emanate from maladjustment, personality disorder or simple rebellion. However, let it be said that some people are misfits, maybe even genetically programmed miscreants, plain and simple.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to state categorically that I have received NO formal education in these matters. I am neither a psychiatrist nor clinical psychologist. I am not a sociologist and definitely not an anthropologist. I am simply a recovering alcoholic, literate enough and sufficiently desperate to read the available literature. Since I am also lucky to still have a fair amount of my brain intact and recovering, I have, on occasion, consciously and otherwise engaged in analytical thought of these issues. Personally, I have been guilty, not of one or two but of all three of the cankers that we are attempting to understand today.
Ladies and gentlemen, the effects of these three maladies are plenty and varied BUT all unanimously negative. Their effect, negative of course, go from threats to your profession and professionalism, impediments to your smooth study, trouble in family life and marriage and finally causes extensive ill health. Be warned that when one of the three makes an entry into your life, progress walks out of your life. One comes in and your sanity is threatened, One comes in and your studies, job or profession is in jeopardy. Their beginning in your life is the end of everything good in it. What then is the way forward? I have said on other occasions and repeat here today that the best way to prevent alcoholism, drug abuse and the resultant irresponsible youth life is NOT to even start trying out with these substances.
DO NOT BEGIN IF YOU HAVEN’T YET.
STOP IF YOU HAVE BEGUN.
And SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP IF YOU CAN NOT STOP.
I want to end with the words of LEO BUSCAGLIA; ’your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God’ THANK YOU.
