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Ramble #2

The statistics or claims about alcohol come from this source: Here

America is notorious for overconsumption, here it is heavily normalized, but nothing is more normalized than alcohol overconsumption.

If you have a hard day at work you go home and have a drink. Men often give their sons their first beer when they're around eleven to fifteen. College students are notorious for getting drunk and doing dumb shit.

This is completely normal, but it shouldn't be.

Why are we allowing eleven-year-olds to drink? Why are we saying it's okay to use alcohol as a coping mechanism? Why are we saying it's fine for twenty-year-olds to binge-drink and make dumb decisions without repercussions?

I get that giving a kid his first beer or a college kid throwing a party doesn't seem like a big issue, but it is. Underage drinking can damage or block the developmental pathways in your head. This can have lifelong mental, emotional, and even physical consequences.

In 2022 5.8 million people from aged twelve to twenty reported that they had drank more than a few sips in the past month. And 90% of all alcoholic drinks that are ingested by underage people are consumed by those who binge-drink. 15.1 percent of youth drink, and that's just the ones who admitted it on a survey.

Many see no issue with coming home from a hard day at work and having a drink, but that is often how alcohol abuse starts. People see no harm in it because it's just alcohol, but they begin to rely on it for its "therapeutic" qualities.

But alcohol isn't therapeutic. It's a drug like any other, it's just so damn normalized in society that most don't know the risks.

Alcohol isn't something that solves your problems. You drink to forget, and then you remember the next day, it's as simple as that. Your problems are still there, but now you have a hangover. It does nothing to lessen your issues or anxieties.

Alcohol use in celebration is—in most cases—a good thing, but it should not be used to stop suffering because the only thing that alcohol will do is worsen it.

But the issue of the normalization of alcohol reaches its peak when you have children. When you drink around your kids you are only further normalizing it. You do dumb things when you're drunk, but now your children have to watch you stumble and slur your words.

Alcoholics with children affect their kids regardless of whether they're mean drunks or not. You change when you drink, a child at any age will understand that. Your kid will in some way or another begin to associate alcohol with happy.

And if there is ever a time in their life where they feel like shit then that will be the first damn thing that they run to, because they have been shown their entire life that alcohol makes things better.

Even though it doesn't.

I am saying this as the child of two alcoholics. If you get drunk around your children they will 100% remember it, they will remember the time you got hammered and fell down the stairs, they will remember every time they had to coax you into bed at two am, they will remember every time you said something hurtful while drunk.

And your children will resent you for it. It is hard to respect somebody like that, regardless of whether they're a parent. Children need stable parents, you don't need to be perfect, but you can't just stop being a parent the moment you start drinking.

Because that's what you're doing. Your kids will realize that you aren't available to be a parent once you start drinking. They'll learn not to ask for things once you've picked up that bottle. You aren't in the right mindset to be a parent when you start drinking, so often times these children just won't have one after a certain time of day.

And often times children of alcoholics become alcoholics later in life. They lack the stability of a normal childhood, they lack the emotional maturity that they should have learned with you. So they pick up the bottle and they make the same mistakes.

And it's sad because that's what you taught them. That is literally all they know to do.

—S.H

[existingisinconvenient]

Ramble #1

I've seen people ask arbitrary things like "What? Do you hate America?" In response to people who want to push for change in America, specifically when these people are liberals or communists.

In response, I would say no.

No, I do not hate America, but I don't love the rampant classism and racism. I can't love the way that our extremely overfunded police and army have in many ways contributed to the housing crisis. I refuse to love that capitalism prioritizes production over the safety and well-being of the workers that are at the forefront of that production.

I hate the way that the billionaires are the only ones who benefit from this fucked system. I hate that equality and acceptance are seen and used as marketing tactics by major corporations.

I hate that prejudice and bigotry are so heavily ingrained in American society that even the way we are educated as children is contributing to these false and classist narratives.

I hate that communism-which is a valid ideology that people should be allowed to freely express-is considered a dirty word. Communist is often used as an insult. Often times people flinch at communism more than they do at fascism.

Fascism is in practically every case inherently bad. It is an inherently flawed and sexist system.

Communism is neither bad nor good. It is an idea which strives for "utopia" and independence and prosperity for the working class.

So why is it that so many Americans fear and hate communists more than they do fascists? It makes no fucking sense, and it is almost entirely rooted in the conflict between America and The Soviet Union during the Cold War. WHICH STARTED ITS FIRST PHASE 1945!

So I will say once again that I don't hate America.

But I know that America could do better, could be better. We are all being killed by Capitalism, only the top 1% truly get anything from this system. I know that in order for us to have a truly democratic country things have to change.

I wish I could end this ramble with some important wisdom, or some call to action, but I can't. I'm just somebody sitting in their room at 4:00 AM and writing a blog post that nobody will probably ever care about.

So all I'm ending this with is a goodbye.

— S.H