Wednesday, June 29, 2016

This Might be the Biggest Disability in all the Land

   Here's a problem America might not even be considering, one it might not even be trying to measure, though it could and should: How many people are alcohol disabled? How many people are disabled by alcohol? I don't know that the term "alcohol disabled" is even used much. But, as surely as people are disabled by loss of limbs, or Parkinson's disease, or muscular dystrophy, they can be disabled by alcohol.
   Do we even count how many there are? Is the total 8 million, or however many? Shouldn't we be able to tally them up and measure how serious this problem is? No, I don't think I've ever heard a service promo saying something like, "Twenty thousand people are disabled by alcohol each year. Twenty thousand lives lost to this disabling disease every year."
   I would not be surprised, if we did commence to count them, but what we would find that alcohol disability is the number one disability in all the land. 
   Nor, have I ever heard of an association that deals with this disability. We have the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Arthritis Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and so forth. Why not the Americans with Alcohol Disability Association? 
   Lives are being lost. I speak of those who die from alcoholism, but those whose lives are changed so much for the worse that, in a very real way, they are lost. Perhaps we could save some if we organized against it. Perhaps we could address the problem better if we were to recognize alcohol disability for what it is, if we were to count and tally these people, and if we had an association fighting to cure this widespread disability. Curing it obviously means finding a way to prevent people from drinking too much. The question is, is it politically or socially incorrect to even consider such a thing?

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