When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I registered for a drug abuse class. At that age, I did not grasp the fact that alcohol abuse in truth was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and especially about alcohol side effects, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for people all over the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehabilitation and the different alcohol rehab clinics that are commonly available to people who engage in hazardous drinking.

Injurious Results That are Correlated With Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse

Some of the damaging results correlated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class unquestionably startled me. The ruined lives and frequent problems experienced by most alcohol addicted individuals made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In a word, I did not want to face the disaster and destruction that alcohol dependent people almost always experience.

Let this sink in for a moment. What fifteen-year-old individual wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What teenager wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that consuming alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What young person wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related difficulties before he or she becomes an adult?

What teenager wants to encounter alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would an individual engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause serious issues in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after an individual has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would a teenager want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that centers on excessive drinking?

These issues were so meaningful that I talked about some of them in class throughout the school year. What was utterly unbelievable to me was the number of students who basically didn’t care about the dangerous consequences of irresponsible drinking that I talked about. It was almost as if they couldn’t be troubled with reality and how these results can wreck their lives. For the first time in my life I started to understand something that my grandfather used to articulate all through my teen and pre-teen years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

It’s Important, Liberating, and Beneficial to Keep Yourself From the Unhealthy and Destructive Consequences of Drug and Alcohol Abuse

And even at my young age, I also started to understand how beneficial, important, and energizing it is in life to remove yourself from the unhealthy and destructive outcomes of drug and alcohol abuse.