Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Quotable Teetotaler or Non-drinker: Anti-alcohol advice, quotations, epigrams & sayings about alcohol, drinking, bars & nightclubs

The following are some tentative warnings, observations (some of them containing semi-fictional material), sayings, epigrams, and aphorisms I have writen in opposition to alcohol --- observations of mine that are designed to help demystify alcohol's currently all-too-glamorous role in 21st Century American society.

The following observations from myself are also designed to highlight the benefits of alcohol-free living by 21st Century Americans. I would like to also share these additional observations as part of my own personal, philosophical, religious, and political crusade against alcohol consumption:


---"A day without alcohol is a day without fear of the morning after."

---"A day without alcohol is a day without fear."

---"You call it a Tequila Sunrise; I call it a Tequila Sunset."

---"You say you don't trust teetotalers. So why is it that when you drive your car, you always tell me that you want all the drivers facing you from the opposing lane to be completely sober?"

---"'Alcohol on the rocks', you tell the bartender. Your wife, though, sees it differently: It's your marriage that's on the rocks."

--"You say you drink alcohol because it offers you a 'blind rage' defense in a court of law: You were too blinded by the effects of alcohol in your body to see what you were doing when you committed that violent felony crime.
The jury listening to you will be citing blind rage of their own after they hear your testimony on your own behalf: They were so enraged by your dastardly drunkard's defense that they'll throw you into the slammer for 60 years!"

---"Those who spend time inside bars, end up behind bars."

---"One way to identify an American with an alcohol addiction is to ask him to please tell you the purpose of the American Bar Association. If he's a confirmed alcoholic, he'll reply that the American Bar Association exclusively represents owners of bars and nightclubs and their regular customers."

---"I was surprised by the 'Freedom of Religion' defense that Teddy tried to use in a courtroom last month after he got charged with driving while intoxicated. Teddy claimed that he drank heavily out of religious devotion. Teddy wanted to experience a traditional religious communion, he said, and since no one from his congregation was present in the nightclub he patronized on the night in question, Teddy felt compelled to drink one cupful of alcohol for each of the 505 adult members of his congregation."

---"Harry, the expression 'justice is blind' was not intended as an endorsement of your alcohol addiction. No judge is saying that when you become blind drunk late at night, whatever results from that will be ruled in a courtroom to have been perfectly just and reasonable and law-abiding and honorable on your part."

---"Your heritage is definitely Scotch Irish. You are all Irish in ancestry, and your breath always identifies you as Scotch whiskey."

---"You are what you drink. So choose wisely each time you permit a beverage to enter your mouth."

---"Your idea of restraint is to order a Long Island Tea with your meal inside a restaurant. It's primarily the tea you're going for, you always declare with a silly smirk on your face. But the hangover you get the next morning is definitely not tea-induced. And the scenery in your mind the next morning is not Long Island: it's Manhattan at rush hour, all the horns honking furiously."

---"The Dewar's Profiles in 'The New Yorker' magazine are very misleading. A true profile of a Dewar's whiskey drinker features splitting headaches, liver damage, DWI-related accidents, and hangovers in the hospital."

---"My guess is that he's a vicious wife-beater. His favorite drink that he always orders in nightclubs is the Bloody Mary."

---"If you don't stop drinking grasshoppers, you will end up with the IQ of an insect and the body of a hippopotamus."

---"If you want to avoid turning into a rapist or rape victim, try becoming a teetotaler."

---"Help deter organized crime: Join the ranks of American teetotalers."

---"All the alcohol he urged you to drink during your courtship period has left you with a severe hangover: your marriage of today to an alcoholic wife-beater."

---"To those who say that drinking alcohol combines well with eating cheese, my reply is that consumption of alcohol is more often accompanied by consumption of licit drugs, illicit drugs, or tobacco. And any of those combinations is injurious or fatal."

---"If alcohol is bad for your fetus when you're pregnant, why should alcohol ever be good for you yourself when you're not pregnant?"

---"Every time you drink wine, imagine Roman Catholic monks stomping on grapes with their naked feet in France. Then imagine a monk's foot fungus ending up in the wine you are drinking."

---"You call it your 'Gin and Tonic', but I can assure you this beverage you habitually drink is NO TONIC for you. Try orange juice instead."

---"It's obvious the only reason you order alcohol inside this nightclub is that you feel you would look awkward and unattractive to prospective dating partners if you stood here without a drink in your hand. You don't know what to do with your hands at this pick-up joint."

---"If you drink any more Manhattans tonight, you are going to feel as full of pain as everyone in New York City felt on September 11, 2001."

---"You take great pride in never getting drunk--not even tonight, you say. Since you like to play semantics games, let me point out that you are definitely INTOXICATED, and you are definitely INEBRIATED. And if you drive your motor vehicle tonight, a police officer could legally arrest you and put you in a jail cell reserved for the very group of men you claim never to be a member of----THE DRUNKARDS!"

---"As often as you claim to me that Jesus drank that wine so it's a sacred beverage, you say, you fail to admit that there is no wine on the market called Jesus Wine
. And besides, why does it matter to you whether Jesus drank wine? You are not even a Christian, and you know it."

---"You like to boast with pride that you never touch HARD liquor.
But does it ever occur to you that you can get just as drunk off your gourd and be just as guilty of committing violent crimes whenever you drink what you are classifying as SOFT liquor?"

---"You claim the only reason you drink hard liquor is to stay warm in the wintertime, so let's make a deal. Every time you feel a need for hard liquor, you can hug me instead. My body is plenty warm, and we are living together as boyfriend and girlfriend, after all."

---"Just because it's freezing outdoors doesn't mean that you should patronize a bar or nightclub to find some body heat for yourself tonight. If you purchase a nice warm blanket for your bed, you'll wake up with no regrets---and no need for a morning-after pill, since your new blanket won't put you at risk of pregnancy."

---"Suzie, are you sure that drinking hard liquor in nightclubs is the best way for you to meet Mr. Right? If you're drunk at the time, how can you distinguish between Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong? After all, drunk people are easily misled by optical illusions!"

---"Anna, did it ever occur to you that the single men you are most likely to meet in bars and nightclubs are also the single men most likely to be alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, and chain smokers? Does that sound like the type of men you'd want to date?"

---"Sarah, you say that hanging out in bars and nightclubs is your best strategy for meeting Mr. Right. But has it ever occurred to you that 99 percent of the very best Mr. Rights out there do not hang out in bars and nightclubs?"

---"True gentlemen show restraint around alcohol: they either abstain or refrain."

---"If the Austin Police Department in Austin, Texas, imposed a $1 fine on each Austin resident guilty of walking while intoxicated on public property, that would immediately solve the financial crisis that the City Government of Austin is facing today."

---"Sam, I'm baffled by your confession that you only go bar-hopping on nights when it's cold outside, since you only require female body heat on cold nights. Are you some bizarre type of vampire who devours female body heat in lieu of drinking human blood? If so, your identification with criminal vampires is very frightening to me!"

---"You claim to love getting drunk, but you know full well that half the time you get so drunk you end up vomiting. Are you telling me that you love to vomit?"

----"You claim that getting drunk is a very natural and healthy source of enjoyment for you. But I disagree. Whenever you vomit after getting drunk, that's your body telling you that you are ALLERGIC TO ALCOHOL!"

---"You were willing to see a dermatologist when you developed a skin allergy. So why aren't you willing to see a medical physician about the many occasions in which your body has expressed to you ITS OWN INTENSE ALLERGY toward consumption of alcohol----through your MANY painful headaches and hangovers, your dizziness, your vomiting, your inability to walk or talk."

---"If alcohol is so healthy for you, as you claim, why do you spend so much of your time and money to consume ill-advised over-the-counter medications and food to soothe your stomach lining while attempting to undo or erase the repercussions from your most recent alcohol spree? And by the way, have you ever considered that you might be developing a double-addiction: to alcohol and, because of alcohol's injurious role in your life, to non-prescribed medications."

---"You always claim that purchasing wine from Italy is the only opportunity you have to help boost the Italian economy. Has it ever occurred to you that you could buy fashionwear from Italy, or you could buy wholesome artworks from Italy, or you could purchase olive oil from Italy, as an alternative financial investment in that European nation? I doubt that even the Italian people would want you to get drunk in order to express an affinity for their nation. Drunken people are dangerous, as the majority of Italians would no doubt agree."

---"You love to talk about your favorite chasers that you elegantly gulp to 'achieve inebriation with class,' you declare with a fatuous grin on your face. Are you telling me that getting drunk in a stylish manner has, for you, become the leading definer of what sets you apart from the Joe Blow with a 'I heartshape beer' tattoo on his neck who for his primary hobby guzzles beer and devours pretzels while shouting obscenities at opposing football teams on television?"

---"In your youth, you spoke enthusiastically about chasing your dreams. Today, you speak enthusiastically about chasing alcoholic beverages. Are you completely sure that you are a better person today than you were in your childhood?"

--"If a psychologist conducted a word-association game with you in which he asked to respond to the proper noun 'England,' your immediate reply would be 'Bombay Gin.' If you were then asked to respond to the proper noun 'India,' your immediate reply would be 'Bombay Gin.' Is it possible you've developed a one-track mind because of your alcohol addiction, so much so that you apparently regard England and India as being twin nations virtually synonymous with and indistinguishable from each other."

---"You are so perverted by your alcohol addiction that if you were to visit Russia for a leisuretime vacation, you would attempt to visit each of the vodka distilleries there as your sole itinerary."

---"The only occasion in which I ever see you making use of your nostrils is to sniff a wine before proceeding to sip. You always explain that a gourmet and connoisseur such as yourself has a great devotion to sniffing wines on a daily basis. But no other aroma or fragrance or scent holds any interest for you anymore. Are you sure you aren't turning into an alcohol-crazed wino?"

---"If you surveyed all the death-row state-prison inmates in the United States, the vast majority of them would confess that they were drunk when they committed that murder."

---"You blame your boyfriend for the unwanted pregnancy you sustained. So why do don't you also blame the alcohol that your boyfriend and you drank together the night he got you pregnant out of wedlock."

--"You talk about the great variety of sensations you have had in your exciting and trendy life as a frequent consumer of alcohol. And what about that great variety of yours you claim to delight in? Some days you suffer from a hangover period. Other days, you suffer from a pre-hangover period."

---"The outrageous things you do to prove you are no longer a member of the Kool-Aid crowd, now that you're a legal-status adult and all, are enough to make me puke. Frankly, I would prefer to see you drinking Kool-Aid, for all of its high-sugar content, to 99 percent of the alcoholic beverages you permit to enter your body on a daily basis."

---"You claim that your alcohol habit enhances your virility. Do you want to know how virile and manly you look when you can't even stand up straight after you've been drinking beer all night?

----"So tell me, how many of the biggest crises of your life were occasions in which alcohol played a role in that tragedy of yours?"

---"You like to joke that the devil made you purchase a six-pack of beer. Did the devil also make you vomit after you drank that beer?"

---"What American cities desperately need are fewer Bourbon Streets ala New Orleans, and more urban thoroughfares named 'Orange Juice Way,' 'Grapefruit Juice Drive,' 'Grape Juice Boulevard,' 'Apple Juice Street,' and 'Limeade Drive'."

---"I blame the high alcoholism rate in New Orleans on the fact that that southern city pushes alcohol on its residents whenever it names streets. If New Orleans would rename Bourbon Street as Banana Smoothie Boulevard, the alcohol addiction rate in that city would drop 10 percent."

--"You say you need alcohol as an aphrodisiac, since it 'helps' you to find the romantic desire you need toward a new dating partner. I respectfully disagree. If you don't feel that romantic desire toward a new acquaintance when you are fully sober, doesn't that tell you all you need to know about your lack of attraction to that human being?"

---"Most American men drink alcohol partly because they're terrified of the possibility that if they didn't, and if they instead attempt to have sober sex with their mutual-consent romantic partner, they'll suffer the humiliation of impotence."

---"You ask why millions of American men take Viagra pills in their romantic life. For the same reason that millions of American men consume alcohol in their romantic life: They fear that if they don't, their presence in the bedroom will be minuscule."

---"Any so-called 'community' or so-called 'subculture' that sponsors alcohol consumption by persons choosing to be involved in that group is no true community at all. They are, in fact, pseudo-communities and pseudo-subcultures. They are the cutting edge of narcissism, depravity, self-destructiveness, criminal violence, and injuriousness toward others."

---"You say your frequent consumption of alcohol helps you to be of good cheer. Have you ever heard of cirrhosis of the liver? Do you know how cheerful you would feel if you contracted cirrhosis of the liver?"

---"You say that your alcohol pastime has given you lots of fine drinking buddies. How many of those drinking buddies you profess to admire do you actually invite into your home and introduce with pride to your wife or girlfriend?"

---"You say that a good life demands lots of jovial drinking buddies. How many of those drinking buddies are sober and honorable designated drivers for you when you need a ride home from the bar where you hang out?"

---"You praise your drinking buddies so much that you are obviously overlooking the many very fine gentlemen and ladies who'd make wonderful tea-sipping companions and delightful fruit-juice-sipping companions for you. And the words of wisdom from your sober companions would offer you far fewer occasions for regret."

---"You claim your ability to pursue happiness demands lots of drinking buddies in your life. How do you know there aren't lots of honorable and interesting and pleasant tea-drinking gentlemen who'd enjoy chatting with you in person inside a teahouse or coffeehouse?"

---"You claim that drinking alcohol helps you to replicate your glorious fraternity days back when you attended the University of Texas at Austin. Are you telling me that your entire adult life should be a mere replication of what you already experienced at age 20?"

---"You claim that drinking lots of alcohol in your post-graduate life helps you to re-live the joy of your fraternity days. But whenever you complain of a hangover, it seems that all you've graduated into is a splitting headache accompanied by unpleasant solitude."

---"You say you love to sing the Stephen F. Austin High School varsity athletic squads' fight song praising heavy consumption of alcohol by that public school's student body. Does it ever cross your mind that Austin High School students of today inside this Austin Independent School District here in Austin, Texas, are breaking the law whenever they consume alcohol? Does it ever occur to you that those very same Austin High School students might then have a motor-vehicle accident and sustain a permanent injury under the influence of that very same shockingly immoral Loyal Maroon fight song that you claim to revere?"

---"You express concern about terrorism. The biggest source of terrorism that will ever be inflicted on you yourself is the glass of tequila you are holding in your hand right now."

---"You claim it's very significant that 'spirits' and 'spirituality' appear to have the same root word. Are you suggesting that you get drunk in order to invite religion into your life? If that's so, then your chosen God is obviously Dionysus or Bacchus, depending on whether you favor the Greeks or the Romans. And your idea of a 21st Century priest is a bartender."

---"If, as you say, your happiest and most joyous moments in your life have all been moments in which you were drunk at the time, why is it that your personal photo album that you love to share with your friends does not feature any photograph of you in which you appear to be inebriated?"

---"Your identification with Ernest Hemingway is frightening. You like to invoke his name whenever you get drunk, since you claim your emulation of Hemingway inside a bar will inspire you to write a great short story. Have you ever thought about the millions of American men who get drunk without ever writing a short story that gets published?"

---"You love to cite Hemingway as a credential on behalf of drinking alcohol. Are you aware that Hemingway committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, because he drank too much alcohol in his life? So whenever you wax sentimental about that world-famous Sloppy Joe's bar in Key West, Florida, and dear Ernest Hemgingway, my reply is always the same: What about Ketchum, Idaho, and the suicidal gun held by Ernest Hemingway that fateful day in 1961?

---"You boast that your cup runneth over from the many joys of alcohol consumption. My reply is that your cup leaks."

---"You love to equate getting drunk with explorations in anarchism. Imagine a world without laws or government, you boldly declare. You forget, though, that your anarchistic spree ends abruptly the moment a police officer arrests you on a DWI charge."

---"You always claim that alcohol has accounted for many of the happiest days of your life. But when I ask you to describe what happened on those days you recall as having been euphoric, you confess that you were either too drunk to recall anything, or you fell into an alcohol-induced slumber. You then invariably add that you feel very confident you had sweet dreams that night; and this, as it turns out, is all you are really claiming from your Bacchalian Bash Experience."

--"Drinking alcohol destroys brain cells, and you are one individual who definitely needs all the brain cells you can get. Doesn't it stand to reason that you should eliminate consumption of alcohol from your lifestyle?"

---"You drink alcohol with the nervous desperation of a college freshman pledging to a fraternity house. Are you sure you aren't secretly applying for membership in a college fraternity house that's open to an obese 45-year-old such as yourself?"

---"You refer to alcohol as your Fountain of Youth, since you always feel a lot younger whenever you get drunk. You definitely come across as younger when you're drunk: you always remind me of a 2-year-old. And I hope I'm not slandering 2-year-olds when I say that."

--"The Freedom of Association and Freedom of Assembly clauses of the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights fully support your legal right as a non-alcoholic American citizen to yourself associate in full with other non-alcoholic Americans. Be very grateful for having that legal freedom to live your life accordingly."

--"You say you are afraid to host an alcohol-free party in Austin, Texas, since you feel sure that no one would attend. Are you telling me that all of your friends in Austin, Texas, are alcoholics?"

---"I disagree with your statement that the only way to meet Texas Legislators is by drinking lots of beer at a famous beer-garden restaurant near the State Capitol in Austin. Any state legislator of Texas worth meeting is a state legislator who's fully sober at the time."

---"You refer to the Last Call inside a nightclub as your chance to play quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys with two minutes left and lead your team to a come-from-behind win. Has it ever dawned on you that throwing quick passes at female patrons inside a nightclub at 1:58 a.m. is not likely to score a touchdown for you?"

---"Your decision to offer alcohol at a party in which half of your party guests are teenagers, sounds like a formula for disaster. Have you ever heard of the term 'corruption of a minor'?"

---"You take pride in drinking all of your alcohol straight whenever you attend a party. You forget that drinking all of your alcohol straight will put you straight in prison."

---"I was surprised by your decision to host a party in Austin, Texas, in which guests are invited to alternate between sipping alcohol and throwing darts at a dartboard. What do you plan to do when a drunk guest of yours fails to hit the bullseye, and instead hits the eye of another guest?"

---"Why do you always insist on welcoming the New Year by giving yourself a splitting headache and hangover?"

---"You say you're a dues-paying member of Alcoholics Anonymous, but there is nothing anonymous about your alcohol addiction. Everyone in Austin, Texas, knows you're a flaming alcoholic!"

---"I just wish I could force you to wear a T-shirt around town that confesses, 'I'm the habitual DWI motorist your mother warned you about!'"

---"I find it disappointing that while other Texan artists cite various individuals as their leading artistic influences, you always say your only real influence in your own artistic pursuits has always been alcohol."

---"You were so drunk the other night that when the bartender asked you if you wanted your alcohol on the rocks, you replied you had no need to lie on a bed of rocks in order to enjoy your alcohol. You'd be more than happy to go lie on a bed of grass instead, you commented."

---"You always seem to have a better rapport with the bartender than you have with any of the patrons inside the bar where you hang out. That's one definition of an alcoholic, it seems to me."

----"You get drunk so often that you could never work for the Defense Department or the police department. In fact, I don't know of any employer that would want to hire you."

---"Your epitaph will someday read, 'He Never Sobered Up, but his Life was Sobering to Many.'"

---"I dread the day I'll be looking at your tombstone in a cemetery. I'm sure that tombstone will say, 'He died asking for a refill on a glass of whiskey.'"

----"If you don't seek treatment for alcoholism, your Famous Last Words someday will be, 'I wish I had sought treatment for it.' Do you know how boring and pathetic that will be for your Famous Last Words?"

---"Harold, you are such a lush that when our waiter brought a flaming dessert to our dining table the other night, you had this dramatic look of horror on your face. Why waste all that good alcohol by starting a fire, you asked your waiter with anger that made you look as inelegant as an Arkansas Hillbilly. And by the way, you're forgetting that the alcohol used to start a fire on a dish is definitely NOT alcohol that should have been drunk, anyway."

---"Harold, I have never understood why you insist on pouring champagne into your pet poodle's water bowl every Saturday night. What you're doing to that poodle is so hideous it reminds me of bestiality! There are days when I feel like reporting you to the Austin Police Department for subjecting an innocent under-age animal to alcohol!"

---"What America desperately needs is a re-ranking of our colleges and universities that cites and praises each of the 20 best schools for permanently alcohol-free teetotalers."

---"What America desperately needs is a rating of Hollywood movies that evaluates each of them based on whether that movie through its cast consistently promoted consumption of alcohol-free beverages."

---"The death rows of prisons throughout the United States are occupied by hundreds of convicts who are experiencing a multi-year hangover after a drinking spree of theirs that put them on death row."

---"Your contention that many of the most evil terrorists and evil stalkers of recent world history have been non-drinkers, is misleading. A disproportionately high percentage of the consistently teetotaling, permanent year-round non-drinkers are, in fact, law-abiding and civil."

--"I don't like the way you equate absention from alcohol with Arab terrorism. You are overlooking the fact that Arab terrorists receive much of their financial support from the illicit drug underworld, which is also pervasively injurious."

--"We've all heard that Italians are less likely to die from heart disease, with their consumption of wine being cited by some as a possible reason for this. What about the statistic on how many Italians die each year from motor-vehicle accidents in which one or both motorists were driving while intoxicted? And what about the statistic on how many wine-drinking Italians die each year from cancer of the liver, throat, mouth, and esophagus that was caused by their consumption of alcohol?"

--"Every time you get drunk inside our home, you blast me with disgusting noise pollution in the form of toxic rock music that you play non-stop! I am going deaf because of your very injurious alcohol addiction!"

--"You take great pride in keeping a very thorough list of new sins you've committed that you then confess that same week to your Roman Catholic priest. Your diligence begs a question. What percentage of the sins you volunteer to your priest would never had occurred if you had been sober at the time?"

--"I would gladly trade 10 alcoholic personal acquaintances for one permanently-alcohol-free and never-previously-addicted, mutual-consent personal friend."

--"Is it really such a consolation to you, when you suffer a major injury from driving your motor vehicle while intoxicated, to recall that you felt as sophisticated and urbane as a wealthy Frenchman when you sipped your wine hours before your accident?"

---"Whenever you drink Manhattans, you compare it to being on the top floor of the Empire State Building on a night when you're so dizzy that any direction in which you step up there might be a fatal-fall accident for you."

--"What's remarkable about your lifestyle, Sandra, is that 99 percent of the men whom you choose inside nightclubs as a prospective biological father of a child of yours, are men whose last name you never learn."

---"Your recent participation in an Alcohol-Drinkers Pride March prompts me to ask you if you are also proud of the fact that 99 percent of the single men you've dated are persons whose last name you could not recall the morning after."

---"Your idea of a great human rights cause is seeking the right to purchase alcohol 24 hours a day, every day of the year, anywhere and everywhere in the city where you reside. So tell me. Do you expect to win a Nobel Peace Prize for making that your cause celebre?"

---"Has it ever occurred to you that if you completely eliminate alcohol from your life, the number of nightmares during your sleep that you experience will decline by 20 percent overnight."

--"Your lifestyle centers on the Boob Tube, as you call it; the Bottle; and your fetishistic worshipping of your wife's breasts. I'm no psychologist, but I believe you've got an oral fixation."

---"You always declare 'Bottoms up' to your drinking companions, but the only 'bottom' I ever see is yourself making a foolish 'ass' out of yourself that night."

---"You love to boast that as a native Southerner, your all-time favorite alcoholic beverage is Southern Comfort. I would like to know who derives comfort from watching you turn recklessly inebriated after drinking that vile beverage."

---"You love to boast that you honor your parents by drinking the very same alcoholic beverages they favored. Has it ever occurred to you that if your parents had abstained from alcohol, they would still be alive today to actually hear you praise them?"

---"You speak of alcohol as if it were a family heirloom, since the brand of whiskey you drink every week was for decades the family favorite of your parents and grandparents. What you fail to add is that a wall hanging about cirrhosis of the liver that killed several of those alcohol-addicted relatives would be a more fitting heirloom for you."

--You claim that it's your great devotion to dental hygiene that accounts for the scent of alcohol on your breath whenever you report for work in the morning. You are religiously devoted to using your alcohol-based mouthwash each morning, you say. Myself, I wish I were your work supervisor. I would respond to your dental hygiene boasts by ordering you to pass a random blood test to be administered through your employer. Then if you fail that blood test, I'd put you on a fully-paid leave of absence until you successfully complete an alcohol-addiction treatment program that your employer would pay for in full. Then, if you still persist in showing up for work under the influence of alcohol, I'd fire you."

--"One of the things you will never find in the 'Guinness Book of World Records' is a ranking of the most heinous or barbarous crimes that human beings inflicted on one another while under the influence of alcohol. Nor will you ever find in the 'Guinness Book of World Records' a listing of each of the most injurious accidents in world history that resulted from one or more persons being under the influence of alcohol at the time of that accident."

----"One of the reasons I admire Belgium is that Belgium, for me, does not call to mind any particular type or brand of alcohol. Belgium is chocolate bars, and you cannot get drunk from eating chocolate bars."

---"Whenever I ask you what your best year has been, you always reply by citing the best year in which the French wine you adore the most was produced. You always talk as if your own life story were somehow synonymous with the vineyards of France. Doesn't that strike you as a bit crazy or derange, as the French themselves might put it?"

---"You have talked incessantly about wanting to own your own vineyard. I would like to propose an alternative ambition for you. What about wanting to own your own solar-panel manufacturing plant? Wouldn't that be a lot better for yourself and this nation and world, than a vineyard that links your good name to crime and injury?"

---"My husband is so obsessed with alcohol that the only Jewish man he ever cites with great affection is a late rabbi named Manischewitz. My husband wants to throw a Manischewitz Birthday Party in honor of the late 19th Century American rabbi and business owner who first made it possible to get drunk from kosher wine, as my husband loves to joke. I told my husband his birthday party tribute idea is outrageously perverse! It's as if my husband were expecting a rabbi from an earlier century to somehow bless my husband's alcohol addiction problem!"

---"One of the reasons I admire Switzerland is because it calls to mind hot cocoa and chocolate bars and not a drop of alcohol. The Swiss are obviously very aware that you have to be sober at all times if you want to travel safely among the Swiss Alps. The wholesome sobriety of the Swiss lifestyle is very admirable, it seems to me."

--"You love to boast about your year-round pastime of getting drunk on the top floor of the tallest building in each major city you visit. What you always fail to add is that in most of those trips of yours to major cities where you got drunk that way, you have vomited in the elevator while riding down to the first floor."

--"Eliminate consumption of drinking alcohol from this planet, and organized crime will vanish."

---"You question the correlation between drinking-alcohol and organized crime? Name one Mafia don from all of American history or Italian history who completely abstained from alcohol! I am very sure you will never find any case of a teetotaling Mafia don!"

---"If America turned alcohol-free overnight, the AIDS rate in this country would drop by 50 percent. AIDS is spread because HIV-negative persons were too drunk at the time to get a good and close and honest look at their most recent prospective sex partner. And their most recent prospective sex partner was too drunk at the time to volunteer that he is HIV-positive."

---"If America turned alcohol-free, the number of Americans engaging in indiscriminate sex with a wide variety of sex partners would drop 50 percent overnight. If single Americans got a good and completely sober look at a prospective sex partner, this would result in far fewer sexual propositions and far fewer Americans feeling disgust and aesthetic revulsion the morning after. This drop in our national promiscuity rate would also result in a 50 percent drop in the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and in the spread of the HIV virus and AIDS throughout the United States."

---"What America desperately needs is a new website exclusively devoted to the posting of published news accounts from newspapers and wire services that refer to criminal conduct or an accident or injury or the spread of a disease that was reportedly linked to someone being under the influence of alcohol at the time."

---"What America desperately needs is a new website exclusively devoted to profiling success stories of consistently law-abiding and non-stalking Americans who completely and permanently abstain from any and all consumption of drinking alcohol."

---"Fred, if you're so sure that your alcohol habit is good for your health, why is it that every time you visit a medical doctor, the first question he asks you is, 'Do you consume any alcohol?'"

--"My favorite human rights cause that I support and champion above all others, is the human right of a non-alcoholic American citizen such as myself to refuse to marry or live with or romantically date an alcoholic American citizen."

---"I will never understand why she agreed to marry a man who got drunk in her presence at least once per week during their engagement period. 'Never marry an alcoholic'----that is rule number one for any single woman!"

---"You boast about being a genius, but your choice of beverages each day suggests you suffer from mental retardation. You have the option of requesting orange juice, and you instead choose a Screwdriver as your beverage whenever we dine in your favorite restaurant. That's one definition of a moron, it seems to me!"

--"You boast about your speed at drinking alcohol as if you were a professional athlete taking pride in your swiftness on foot. Has it ever occurred to you that your gulping down alcohol as if that were a timed Olympics event is not true athletics? You aren't adding to your muscles from this. All you're adding to is the size of your belly!"

--"You love to comment that beer is the logical beverage to order whenever you dine in a seafood restaurant or Mexican restaurant. So tell me. Is that why you dine in seafood restaurants and Mexican restaurants five days a week? Are you looking for an excuse to add to your already-enormous beer belly?"

--"You claim that drinking alcohol has always been a cherished all-American tradition. Aren't you forgetting the fact that all American military personnel during World War I were legally prohibited by the U.S. Government from consuming any drinking alcohol during their period of military service? Aren't you forgetting the fact that the purchase, possession, or consumption of drinking alcohol was prohibited by federal law throughout the entire United States from 1920 until 1933? Aren't you forgetting the fact that many law-abiding Americans did diligently obey the federally-imposed ban on alcohol consumption throughout the Prohibition Era, and those law-abiding Americans' medical health and moral health benefited greatly as a result."

--"We've all heard about the so-called suicide blondes from Hollywood history--the glamorous blonde Hollywood actresses who either committed suicide or died accidentally from an overdose of pills. What you probably haven't heard much about, though, are the drinking-alcohol consumption habits of each of those motion-picture actresses. Has it ever occurred to you that if Marilyn Monroe had become a teetotaler, she would still, even today as a senior citizen, be posing for photographers as a lovely cover girl for popular modern magazines."

--"Whenever my husband, Ted, consumes alcohol and any female adult person other than myself is in his presence, Ted immediately reacts as if she were seeking to seduce him. 'It's very shameless of you to try to take advantage of me when I'm under the influence of alcohol!' Ted will declare loudly with a blush so passionate that it's as if he had forgotten his wife was sitting about 15 feet away from Ted in the same room. 'Of course you'd like nothing better than to get into my pants! That's obvious! You were probably paid by one of my enemies to attempt to put me in a compromising position, so that you could then obtain a videotape of me that would ruin my career and marriage! Well, I won't let you do that to me! I am outraged by your very shocking tactics, not the least of which is the viagra pill you obviously dropped into my drink tonight when I wasn't looking! I can tell from the gleeful look on your face that you were the one who poisoned my drink in that perverse and lewd manner!"

--"I sense that the real reason why you yourself order an alcoholic beverage as an airplane passenger is because you hope that the alcohol will reduce your pain in the event of a collision. But then, when the plane lands safely at your destination, you are once again reminded that the alcohol you paid for and drank on the flight had no point to it. You also note as you attempt to exit your airplane that you are now at risk of sustaining a motor-vehicle accident from driving a rental car while intoxicated."

---"Liquor is sicker."

---"Are you ailing from ale?"

---"Those who boast about being on top of the world from drinking highballs soon learn what a bottom-of-the-world lowball experience is like."

--"You call it a nightcap; I call it poison at bedtime."

--"Celebrating with champagne borders on the insane."

--"Those who drink beer are never quite here."

--"Why do you boast of getting smashed from alcohol? Are you proud of your self-inflicted injury?"


--"You claim to lead a wholesome life, yet all the alcoholic drinks you favor have X-rated names to them....Are you sure you know the difference between a porno movie focused on orgasmic stunts in the bedroom and a true love movie?"

--"Three of every four alcoholics is also a deranged and recklessly rapacious sexaholic."

--"Drinking alcohol is the first step on the reckless road to promiscuity."

--"You spend much of your time apologizing for the latest indiscretion you committed under the influence of alcohol. If you eliminated alcohol from your life, you'd have far fewer reasons to apologize."

--"Keep a journal noting each occasion when you committed an act of violence, and whether you were drunk at the time. That self-awareness exercise can help to liberate you from libations."

--"When you're drunk as a skunk, do you understand why people don't want to be around you during that period? Like a skunk, you spray a hideous poison from inside your body toward anyone who crosses you path."

--"You claim that alcohol promotes camaraderie and harmony among human beings. World peace, you declare, begins with everyone getting a buzz from alcohol. Why, then, are bouncers employed in bars and nightclubs? Are bouncers primarily there as peaceful hospitality hosts who smile and shake hands, and make everyone feel welcome and in cheerful harmony with others at all times? Another question: why is it that teahouses, by contrast, have no need to employ bouncers? Is it possibly because people who are sober are less likely to engage in fist-fights and altercations than people who are drunk?"

--"You claim to be honest, yet your alcohol habit belies that claim. To protect your job security, you make an early-morning phone call to your employer and state that you have developed a 'sudden and mysterious malady' that should end by the next workday, you also state. What you fail to mention to your employer is that your 'mysterious malady' is, in fact, a painful hangover you inflicted on yourself by choosing to drink alcohol the night before."

--"One of my leading objections to alcohol is that after you have consumed it, your ability to pursue anything else that day is severely handicapped. An inebriated person cannot and should not drive a motor vehicle; an inebriated person cannot concentrate well enough to complete a crossword puzzle. An inebriated person cannot read: he has, in fact, turned into a defacto illiterate. Nor can an inebriated person have any hope of playing a tennis match while under the influence of alcohol. Those who have served themselves one too many highballs cannot hope to then serve a tennis ball to an athletic opponent. Tennis demands the complete concentration of a teetotaler."

---"You claim that drinkers experience far more emotional highs than do teetotalers. How would you know? You have not endured an alcohol-free day in your entire adult life."

--"When I look at you, my friend, I see the wrinkles of ruination that alcohol has inflicted on your your life."

--"You extol the virtues of alcohol, yet you admit that you don't want the President of the United States to be consuming any alcohol while on duty. Nor do you want military officers or nuclear-power-plant security officers to be consuming any alcohol while on duty. Nor do you want police officers or medical surgeons or airline pilots to be consuming any alcohol while on duty. Wouldn't our entire world be safer if alcohol consumption by individuals who are on duty at the time were strictly prohibited?"

--"If you surveyed American married couples, you would be shocked by the high percentage of them who celebrate their wedding anniversary each year by consuming alcohol together to the point of inebriation. Is shared inebriation a healthy way to celebrate the most recent 12-month continuity in a mutual-consent romantic relationship?"

--"Sobriety at all times is superb!"

--"When I married you, Harold, I never thought I'd be subjected to beer breath every time we had an intimate converstion. I can't say that I'm charmed by your beer breath, dear. Is it possible we could have our intimate chats by cellular phone, which would spare me from having to fake a lack of revulsion toward your beer breath?"

--"To those who say that celebration of wedding anniversaries should involve shared consumption of alcohol, my reply is this: Did that same wedding couple consume alcohol just before they exchanged wedding vows on the day when they were married? If they agreed to get married while sober, why should they insist on getting drunk in order to fondly recall that day many years before when they got married?"

--"Isn't it odd that human beings are the only members of the animal kingdom who insist on getting drunk on a year-round basis? Name one other member of the animal kingdom who consumes any alcohol at all in that animal's native habitat."

--"If all Americans embraced alcohol-free living, demand for dictionaries would increase dramatically. Millions of Americans who had relied on the infamously profane 'F' word as their primary vocabulary word, would be forced to consult a dictionary in order to learn new words that describe what life is like as a sober person."

--"Until the United States develops a truly effective and nationwide network of drug-and alcohol- and tobacco-addiction treatment programs that are open to all Americans, health care in this country will remain an exercise in futility. The current prospect, of our federal government promising quality medical services accompanied by the greatest of tolerance toward any and all patients who are drug addicts, alcohol addicts, and tobacco addicts, is pathetic in its pointlessness."

---"Ladies, beware of gentlemen who only profess to love you when they are inebriated."

---"One crucial nationwide statistic that tends to get overlooked is the following: Americans addicted to alcohol are far more likely to be unemployed in the year 2010 than are Americans not addicted to alcohol."

--"Whenever an American citizen commits suicide, announcements of that death might as well be accompanied by a public invitation to please donate money toward the non-profit group of your choice that's striving to help reduce the incidence of alcohol addiction and alcohol consumption in this country."

---"The fact that most Americans of today could not cite the names of at least three American presidents who completely abstained from alcohol throughout their entire tenure in the White House, is a tragic commentary on the warping of our national values by the alcohol industry."

--"To drink beer in a tea garden borders on sacrilege. If, however, you happen to find yourself at a beer garden, by all means feel free to sip alcohol-free tea there. It should never offend the beer drinkers to be reminded that a life of sobriety is always a wise and healthy option."

--"What worries me the most about Americans of today is that if they were asked in a survey to cite the human right they value the most, millions would reply that above all else they cherish their human right to get drunk whenever and wherever they wish. In fact, no such absolute 'human right to get drunk' exists, as criminal-law statutes throughout this nation make abundantly clear."

--"Whenever I observe Americans drinking alcohol, I invariably ask myself, 'Why would anyone deliberately seek to poison himself?'"

--"It's a tragic commentary about Americans' values these days that most Americans have never sought to visit and admire a public statue honoring Carrie Nation, the crusading anti-alcohol Prohibitionist leader of American history. However, most Americans would enthusiastically welcome the opportunity to visit and admire a public statue depicting the infamous Bonnie Parker, who robbed banks in early 20th Century America. 'I've always admired a good gangster,' those Americans might comment, mouthing words that they had perhaps heard being uttered by a fictional character on 'The Simpsons' television series."

--"If your own support for alcohol consumption is so commendably honorable and enlightened, as you say, then why is it that so many drinkers such as yourself are persecuting and harassing and seeking to harm and ostracize law-abiding teetotalers such as myself?"

--"The dominant metaphor for life that you have chosen is one in which all of life, in your opinion, is a "last-call" situation in a nightclub in which you are seeking to pick up a complete stranger as your latest sex partner for the night. You are forgetting, though, that 99 percent or more of all human relationships are strictly platonic in nature. Furthermore, you spend much of your life as a sober person in daylight hours --- a time period in which you are facing very non-sexual topics such as parking fees, traffic jams, paying bills, deadlines to meet at your workplace, and the like. Your 'life is a last-call situation inside a nightclub' metaphor completely fails to address these points."

--"One of the tragic aspects of American society today is that the pharmaceuticals industry derives a significant share of its profits from Americans who purchase an over-the-counter medicine because they're experiencing an alcohol-induced hangover. The pharmaceuticals industry in a very perverse manner is eternally grateful for drunks."

---"Why is it that when an American President consumes an alcoholic beverage, everyone is intrigued. But when an American President consumes grapefruit juice or orange juice, his choice of beverage is seen as irrelevant."

---"You ask me why men in the United States are almost never described as wholesome. Let me respond with a question of my own: Do you yourself know of any American gentleman who consume alcohol outside of a church for the sake of piety?"

--"You claim you drink alcohol to unleash the Hollywood entertainer and stand-up comedian within you. You forget, though, that those who observe you when you are drunk never ask you for your autograph."


---"Your obsession with alcohol is so extensive that you insist on drinking a different type of alcohol with each course of your dinner meal. With your appetizer, you insist on drinking sherry. With your main course, a glass of wine is de riguer for you. For a dessert beverage, you insist on drinking a licquer. Has it ever occurred to you that you are so focused on alcohol throughout your entire meal that you largely ignore the taste, texture, and nutritional value of the food --- much less the comments of your dining companion."

--"You claim you have never been repulsed by the breath of persons who consume alcohol. Have you ever riden a public bus in Minneapolis, Minnesota, late at night in the wintertime, and experienced just how oppressively insufferable the collective stench from the inebriated passengers' breaths can be?"

--"You boast of having a high IQ, since you are able to describe in great detail hundreds of alcoholic beverages that are obscure to many Americans. You know all about cognac, you know all about exotic beers from Thailand. Has it ever occcurred to you that your very choice to devote thousands of hours of your life to mastering the A to Z of alcoholic beverages around the world suggests a lack of wisdom, and, in fact, a lack of moral intelligence, on your part. It takes sobriety, you see, to develop a healthy sense of priorities in one's life."

--"I regard it as perverse on your part to claim that a traditional Irish breakfast featuring bladder sausage must also entail drinking a glass of Irish whiskey. Have you ever heard of Irish Breakfast Tea, for God's sake?"

--"You admit that your successes in life have almost always featured rational goal-setting as a starting point. But you cannot cite to me ANY rational goal you have ever delineated for yourself during a period when you were under the influence of alcohol."

--"Those who consume alcohol are always at the mercy of their latest whim. Alcohol consumers tend to be arbitrary and capricious, and, like the infamous alcoholic beverage known as the Hurricane, their path in life inflicts devastating destruction on others. Teetotalers, by contrast, impose a healthy sense of restraint on their own actions. Teetotalers are persons of civility who guide themselves with wisdom. They are frequently asking themselves, 'Is this proposed course of action I might pursue in full compliance with the law? Would this proposed course of action be conscientious on my part and acknowledge the privacy rights of others?'"


---"The alcohol community takes pains to depict teetotalers as fatuous simpletons who lack imagination and intellect. Teetotalers, though, respond very convincingly that a disproportionately high share of the soggy-headed, vapid, intellectually meek, virtually brain-dead Americans are alcoholics who destroyed their own minds and bodies from their vile habit."

---"You claim that your own life would be utterly lacking in romance if it weren't for your glass of plum wine that you sip once a week inside a Chinese restaurant. I would like to ask you what you mean by romance? If you refer to romantic fantasies of yours about some fictional Daisy Wong who dwelled in the pre-communist China of the American novelist Pearl Buck, then perhaps the plum wine does trigger that for you. But if you refer to the real-life, this-world practical, tangible, and healthful, pleasures and satisfaction to be derived from planning a creative and wholesome three-day-weekend trip for yourself and a mutual-consent personal friend of yours, that more profound sense of romance can be better achieved through a consistently alcohol-free lifestyle."

---"You claim that an alcohol-free lifestyle strikes you as severe. Severe toward whom? Certainly not toward the millions of American motorists who each year benefit from facing sober, non-drinking, law-abiding motorists on American roadways. And certainly not toward the millions of Americans each year who are alive and healthy and unharmed partly because male teetotalers tend to be perfect gentlemen. I am confident, in fact, that if you were to survey all of the current death-row inmates of state and federal prisons in the United States of today, you would find that fewer than 1 percent of all those death-row inmates were leading completely alcohol-free and teetotaling lifestyles throughout the entire 12-month period leading up to the murder they commmitted."

---"Why should a member of the Texas Legislature in Austin or a member of the United States Congress in Washington, D.C., be permitted by our government to cast a vote in either governing body at a time when the amount of alcohol in that lawmaker's bloodstream would have gotten that lawmaker arrested had he or she been driving an automobile? Drunken lawmakers can potentially be every bit as injurious to our state and nation as drunk drivers are. It's outrageous that lawmakers are currently permitted to vote while intoxicated and thereby make everyone in this state and nation at the mercy of their alcohol-induced whims and their stupefying liquor-induced illogic."


--"Those who praise alcohol consumption fail to acknowledge that you will almost never find a great human being depicted in a statue as someone holding a mug of beer or a bottle or glass of alcohol in his hand. That famous human being's accomplishments occurred precisely because he had a disciplined flair for creative sobriety---he abstained from alcohol often enough to pursue his creative goals with legendary and very sober zeal."


--"For every married woman in America who complains of being a football widow, since her husband vanishes from her life throughout the football season, there are at least 10 married women in this country who complain of being a liquor widow. 'My husband's addiction to alcohol makes him a virtual ghost in our married life. My husband might as well be dead, since I spend so much of our married life knitting alone inside the living room of our home while trying to remember what my husband looked like when I last saw him in person. I never see my husband at dinnertime, since he is out drinking with his buddies, and I often don't see him at bedtime, since he is out drinking with his buddies. As for breakfast, my husband is generally either not present or sound asleep on the couch after his latest binge with alcohol.' So goes the understandably dismayed complaint from many married women of today."


---"If you want to conduct a one-question survey in which 99 percent of all Americans are stumped by that one question, ask them to please list 10 famous or great Americans who led permanently alcohol-free lifestyles over a multi-decade period. Most Americans would be unable to cite more than a few names, if that many. But if you asked those same Americans in a survey to list 10 famous alcohol-guzzling Americans, they would fill up the entire page with their responses."

--"Eulogies of Senator Edward Kennedy should have noted that if it weren't for his attendance at alcohol-drinking bashes, he would have been elected to the Presidency. The 1969 scandal in which Senator Kennedy lost control of a motor vehicle in which he was driving Mary Jo Kopechne---an accident plunging that vehicle into the ocean that resulted in the tragic death of Miss Kopechne--occurred shortly after Kennedy and Kopechne left one such Cape Cod drinking bash. Millions of Americans were understandably repulsed by the idea of choosing an infamous Homme Fatale as their head of state. And what future tragedies would a President Edward Kennedy inflict on this entire nation as a result of his extensive ties to alcohol-crazed bashes, those American voters wondered."

--"The millions of gallons of alcohol consumed each year by American men and male youths inside houses of prostitution in the United States further attests to the inextricable link between sexual prostitution, organized crime, and the alcohol industry."

--"One of the statistics that the American alcohol industry has no doubt attempted to suppress is the percentage of all American alcohol addicts, or alcoholics as they are called, who later contract the very severe and life-threatening medical problem of diabetes. Let us not forget that alcohol is fattening and very high in sugar content, and consumption of alcohol for that and other reasons is a proven risk factor for the onset of diabetes."

---"If America turned alcohol-free, the number of sex orgies in this country that involve indiscriminate simultaneous sex or near-simultaneous sex with a wide variety of sex partners in the same room, would diminish by at least 75 percent."

---"The high percentage of American male customers of illicit sexual prostitutes who, in their nefarious role as male patrons of prostitutes, are under the influence of alcohol at the time when they engage in illicit acts of carnal copulation, helps explain why so many of those 'johns,' as they are called, are having sex with prostitutes that is shockingly unprotected. And that ill-advised practice, in turn, is one of the many alarming reasons why alcohol plays a ubiquitous role in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases by and through the prostitution underworld."


---"You spend thousands of hours of your leisuretime drinking alcohol inside nightclubs in your search for a romantic partner. You never find a compatible romantic partner for yourself in those nightclubs, and you are going deaf and turning into an alcoholic from all that exposure to loud music and alcohol. By the time you finally do happen to meet a prospective romantic partner for yourself, you will be age 50, wearing a hearing aid, and your liver will have been completely destroyed. I can imagine you pleading with that prospective dating partner by asking that individual, 'Would you be willing to have me as your liver-less lover? I'm a lot of fun on days when I'm not going to the hospital for more surgery.'"

---"Your fascination with ancient Roman orgies prompts me to wonder exactly what you are doing in your leisuretime. I know you are drinking lots of alcohol. I sense that everything else you're into, the stuff you never tell me about, is alcohol-induced mischief that's quite disastrous for you. Do you know what child-support payments are like for the father of children born out of orgy-induced unwanted pregnancies?"

--"When you're wearing your bathrobe and holding a glass of brandy in your hand, you always boast that you're a lot like Hugh Hefner. Does that imply that you haven't grown up yet, since you are still a naughty boy whenever you play?"

---"Your life story suggests the need for medical-science research about the correlation between alcohol addiction and bulimia."

---"You claim to feel like a King whenever you drink Chivas Regal, but all I ever see is yourself being dethroned by your latest hangover."

---"Your outlook toward Valentine's Day is perverse. Instead of writing a love letter to your wife in preparation for that day, you devote all of your time to searching for what you refer to as the 'perfect Valentine's Day alcohol accompaniment'. You always get your wife drunk on Valentine's Day so she'll forget she does not love you anymore."

---"Why is it that the same term, keg, is used to describe both the lethal explosive of dynamite and an alcoholic beverage called beer. Could it be that a keg of beer can, in its own way, be every bit as lethal and injurious as a keg of dynamite?"

---"If you wish to avoid turning into a dreg of humanity, stay away from kegs of beer."

---"You boast that drinking alcohol with your friend is preferable to smoking marijuana or snorting cocaine with your friend. Is that a fair comparison, though, when you could be sipping tea or lemonade with your friend? And sipping tea or lemonade with your friend is perfectly legal and healthful."

---"You claim that your alcoholic-bar hopping has given you a fine opportunity to get to know all the taxi drivers of your city. Are you planning to write your PhD Dissertation about the societal role of taxi drivers as designated drivers to America's many drunks such as yourself?"

---"Show me a dreg of humanity, and I will show you someone who lacked the will power to say 'no' to a keg of beer."

---"It's obvious from your worship of alcohol that your choice of a deity to worship is tragically primitive and perverse. So tell me. Is it Dionysus or Bacchus whom you worship?"


---"What America desperately needs is a comprehensive and fully up-to-date investigation and accompanying study report on the role of organized crime in the American alcohol and nightclub industries."

---"You claim that you are only witty when you are drunk. Aren't you really saying that you are only cynically and obscenely witty when you are drunk, and that your non-cynical, non-obscene wit that occurs during your periods of sobriety is wit of yours you have chosen to ignore? So why do you suppress your wholesome wit? Are you afraid that someone will accuse you of being G-rated, and that you'll get recruited by Walt Disney to appear in movies in which you are forced to keep your clothes on at all times? Is that your idea of a terrifying worst-case scenario?"

---"You claim that your leading accomplishment in life are your moments of naughty wit that occur when you're drunk. Are you saying that you judge your life based on how many times your choice of words would earn you an entry in a 21st Century X-rated edition of Barlett's Familiar Quotations? Is that your raison d'etre, a quest for vulgar quotability in the year 2010? How pathetic can you be?"

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Strategies for Reducing the Role of Alcohol in Your Life, or for Preventing Alcohol from Playing a Role in Your Life

If you would like to either reduce the role of drinking alcohol in your own life, or prevent alcohol from having a role in your life, you might try any of these strategies:

(1) Make a point of spending less of your leisuretime at establishments (nightclubs, bars, restaurants, live-theater playhouses, etc.) that sell alcohol. This will reduce the amount of temptation to imbibe that you might be subjected to during your lesiuretime.

(2) When you host a social party, let your guests know in advance that the beverages offered or permitted at that party will be limited to fruit juices, fruit juice blends, tea, water, and other alcohol-free beverages. "NO BYOBs will be accepted at my party," your party invitations could clearly state.

(3) Spend less time with friends of yours who are heavy drinkers. If you spend lots of time with those heavy-drinkers, they might influence your own values and coax you into drinking alcohol yourself.

(4) Stop getting together with anyone who repeatedly pressures you to consume alcohol.

(5) If you are a member of a civic group, do not attend any civic event hosted by that group at which alcohol will be either offered or consumed.

(6) Spend more of your leisuretime with civic groups and persons who or that do not sponsor or offer any consumption of drinking alcohol.

(7) If you currently drink alcohol every day of the week, try designating at least one day of each week as your alcohol-free (no-alcohol) day on a weekly and year-round basis. You may be surprised to note that that one day of each week will be a day in which you feel calmer and happier and more serene, without your experiencing any adverse side-effects such as vomiting, fits of rage, a tendency toward violence, inability to drive a motor vehicle with alertness and full concentration, a headache, a hangover, etc.

(7a) Never drive a motor vehicle within 10 hours after you have consumed more than one glass of alcohol. If you adhere to that policy, this will remind you on each such occasion that alcohol severely limits you and endangers your own personal safety.

(8) Make a point of having a one-to-one-meeting at a teahouse or coffeehouse with someone you know who is a confessed alcoholic, and who is willing to discuss with you the many harmful and tragic consequences he suffered from his drinking habit.

(9) Try studying the vitamin and mineral content of each of the most healthful non-alcoholic beverages of which you are aware. Then compare that with the vitamin and mineral content derived and actually absorbed into your bloodstream and body from hypothetical consumption of various alcoholic beverages.

(10)If you have a personal friend who habitually asks you to meet him for a drink at a tavern or bar or nightclub, try asking him if he would be willing to meet you instead at a coffeehouse or teahouse for a friendly conversation.

(11) Do some research about the statistical incidence of injurious motor-vehicle accidents suffered by persons who are heavy drinkers. That sobering information will remind you that if you love yourself and want to have a full and healthy and creatively vital life, and if you care about the personal safety of all passengers in your motor vehicle as well as other motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, also on or near the roadway when you drive, you should minimize your own total consumption of alcohol (if you do in fact choose to consume any alcohol).

(12) When you plan out-of-town trips, make a point of selecting wholesome and healthful destinations where there are numerous alcohol-free cultural and tourist attractions. If you visit Salt Lake City, Utah, as a tourist, you are far less likely to be subjected to any pressure to purchase alcohol than if you visit Las Vegas, Nevada, as a tourist.