I recently read about a woman’s experience of alcoholism in her family detailing the abuse of alcohol and its ‘second-hand’ effects on her, and as I read I found my eyes darting as if not wanting to read and feel all that was being presented.
As I read the blog I could feel my own agony of living in a familiar feeling – my own household as a young boy would lurch from sunshine to violence through the use and continued abuse of alcohol. Even as I write this I can feel the questioning of that statement – it wasn’t every day, or every week – and this is how we can allow and not claim that even once is too much, and too many times.
What then is revealed is the fact that as a society we have enjoined and allowed the incremental destruction of our ‘safety’ in which we allow a substance / a drink / a poison to foster a way that we have to operate and be in the world with.
The deeper sadness for me is that I witnessed and felt so many acts of aggression and violence against my mother and family as a result of alcohol abuse that I shut down completely and actually resorted to using the same drink as a teenager to ‘forget and distance’ myself from all that had happened.
The anxiety of living in fear of ‘what next, what next?’ was not allowed as you grew older – the boy was told to be a man. The abuse of alcohol continued for twenty two years; I was also aggressive and violent when drunk sometimes.
How does this occur and at what point do we as a society
start to realise that what we continue to allow,
constantly and insidiously continues to grab and control many?
The abuse of my own body continued unabated until one day I sat on the floor in my lounge and cried and cried knowing that this was not the way to live: I was exhausted not only from the constant use of coffee, alcohol, drugs, food and nervous stimulation but by the fact that there seemed no way out.
What I discovered was that when you claim that you want to change, you are presented with opportunities that start to support that change: effectively you seed forth how you want to be and start to live that without perfection and things start to constellate, to come together so that the changes you want to live are supported.
Many months after committing to cutting out coffee and sugar and alcohol and drugs – I fell off the wagon numerous times – I was introduced to an esoteric healing practitioner and through that door was met with love and true support. Next stop Universal Medicine and the presentations by Serge Benhayon that has deepened the care and love of me beyond what I knew way back when.
The loss we all experience as a society under the continued corruption to keep alcohol acceptable and ‘everything in moderation’
belies the fact that we all know the harm and danger that these substances represent.
Not only is it the untimely deaths and injuries of many that should be making us all yell and scream for it to stop, but more insidious is the fact that every child and every family and every generation is affected in ways that Jacqueline McFadden has described in her blog Drinking Alcohol – The True Picture, The True Damage.
The drink you drink is not only affecting one cell, it affects all cells – the human society is made up of many people and they reflect constantly back and forth to each other – if one is reflecting anxiety and anger then this causes disharmony in those cells/people around it. It really is very simple when we look at it all from that perspective. We all have a responsibility to claim deeply that alcohol, the abuse of alcohol and the many health issues and violent episodes it provides us as reflections is done with. Finished. This is not something that we want for our future generations – starting now.
By Lee Green, Age 43, Business Owner
[This blog originated as a comment inspired by the blog: Drinking Alcohol – The True Picture, The True Damage]
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Lee you write
“The anxiety of living in fear of ‘what next, what next?’ was not allowed as you grew older – the boy was told to be a man.”
As a child I lived in the agony of what’s next, never able to settle living on nervous tension and raciness. As children we had to present to the world that home live was normal – nothing to see here folks, when actually home life was an abusive ordeal to get though as best that one could, which then had a huge impact on adult life, with mental health issues. There is no doubt in my mind that alcohol is a very dangerous drug that we have normalised.
It is accepted that when we dine, whether home or out, there often will be some form of alcohol. And what it does to the person who is consuming the alcohol also affects the people around them? Everything changes. Conversations, behaviours, emotions, food isn’t appreciated, and so it continues. The reason I write this as once upon a time, I used to drink and thought alcohol was society’s norm, when really it’s the opposite.
Can we ever have a gathering where there is no stimulation of any kind and be in the company of others and truly meet them and just be in that company. Yes it is very possible and has been done. There’s nothing wrong with seeing each other for who we truly are.
Drinking alcohol is just one of many things that we, in our society have come to accept as normal whilst damage ensues from it. When will we be ready as a society or a community to take responsibility for this? Will we keep waiting for the alarming statistics of domestic violence, heart disease etc to sky rocket even more than they currently are? What numbers of deaths will finally catch our attention and make us notice? That is a lot of people dying to get our attention – and then what? Will we act together to seek a true change OR go back to watching TV, playing cards or golf…. ignoring statistics will not make a change.
I agree Henrietta. There is another part to this too. The person affected also needs to be willing to see this too. Once they are accepting of their part too, AND take responsibility, then healing can truly begin for all.
Henrietta you wrote this comment in 2020, well it seems that humanity is prepared to checkout deeper into a world of fantasy. Now companies are building virtual worlds, so that if we don’t like this life we can plug ourselves into another fantasy life. So currently it seems as though we as a race of human-beings are not ready to take responsibility for the mess we have made and need to clear up.
Lee, thank you for your heartfelt sharing – and what is all the more powerful is that you too have been there and done that, felt the depth of how this does not work, have got yourself out of it and have then been able to look back and see what has happened. From such an experience when we speak and when we share what we share comes from an understanding and not from a judgement. It is there for all to learn from should they want to have some understanding too. This is the beauty of us all sharing our experiences which in fact are globally experienced, but not globally voiced. One voice thus becomes the voice for many and allows us all to heal.
“The loss we all experience as a society under the continued corruption to keep alcohol acceptable and ‘everything in moderation’ belies the fact that we all know the harm and danger that these substances represent.’ – This should be newspaper headlines…except no one would believe it for when we are so deeply dependent and entrenched in a habit, we often do not want to admit this nor see it and so we are not willing to see the consequences and results of our choices.
Lee you write in such a practical, real and heartfelt way – a book from you would be wonderful. We do need to stop seeing alcohol as harmless or harmless fun, it’s quite a hefty drug that is not only harmful for the body but also disturbing to our behaviours and with toxic effects on relationships. I’ve always felt how strange it is that we don’t question things, even obvious things like alcohol use, we just embrace it as a norm, if we see others do it, including family, then it’s normal.
It is lovely to know that we have support, that we are not alone, ‘What I discovered was that when you claim that you want to change, you are presented with opportunities that start to support that change: effectively you seed forth how you want to be and start to live that without perfection and things start to constellate, to come together so that the changes you want to live are supported.’
Thank you Lee, this reminds me of an old saying that was around a long time ago and that is ‘I was lost in the bottom of a glass’.
One cell/person affects others around them. This is also true when a person chooses to live with Love, The Way of The Livingness, inspires others to choose to live with Love.
Absolutely Mary, lets deepen the love and feel the joy!
That realization, the one that says, you have been part of this, you have been fed and feeding the poison of the society’s normal that you are so disgusted by – this, really should stop every one of us. Reflection offers us this opportunity. However, we all have free will and the reality is not quite so. There was an incident recently where a famous person was arrested for being physically violent to a complete stranger, and the person publicly apologized for their behaviour but when asked about the detail of the incident, their reply was ‘I don’t remember’. The media and the public, or what the media says is the public, responded with fury, saying how irresponsible they were – for blaming the ‘alcohol’, that it was not alcohol’s fault, and that the person did not look remorseful enough etc. See, how we conveniently dis-align ourselves and start developing another argument so that uncomfortable, inconvenient reflection does not have to look us in the eye.
I read on the BBC web site that a young woman had gone missing while heavily intoxicated with alcohol. Friends had watched her get out of a taxi that took her back to where she was living. But instead of going into her house she wandered off down the road and has not been seen since. The local community is out searching for her this shows to me that not only is alcohol harming to our bodies it is harming to the families and communities that are left to cope with the aftermath of the choice to self- abuse with alcohol.
So true Mary, we turn a blind eye to the ramifications of so many things hopping it will all turn out okay, when in truth there is no amount of wayward behaviours that will ever be true to our essence.
Alcohol can leave a wake of harm from those that are abusing it, ‘The loss we all experience as a society under the continued corruption to keep alcohol acceptable and ‘everything in moderation’ belies the fact that we all know the harm and danger that these substances represent.’
Lee thank you for your honesty, and it is interesting to read how you witnessed the abusive nature that drinking alcohol produces but then how you went on to use alcohol as a way to numb what you were feeling.
I know that we can get to a stage where we just give up and enjoin society because everyone else is using something to dull their awareness to get by in life. For many of us we do not want to feel what we cannot stop feeling which is the unease we live with constantly and seemingly the only way to stop feeling is to dull and numb ourselves rather than admit there is an unease in our bodies that we cannot deal with, why have we made it so difficult to admit this?
As I was growing up, I never quite understood the influence alcohol was having – it was not a violent outburst, but used by all of us as a means to cope with the way we were feeling… to lift the party, to drown our sorrows, or perhaps most insidiously to cope with our everyday stress and feeling of misery. The fact it was slightly under the radar by being so normal was perhaps the worst bit of all as it was all just so normal.
Not just the consumption of alcohol as such is abusive also how society considers it to be a normal, legal and at times even health supporting substance like in a glass of wine a day will do you good, kick your circulation or provide particular nutrients without taking into consideration the harming effects. It is a consciousness that is abusive, ie. the way we think and talk about it, the ideals and beliefs, the excuses and justifications… they are all abusive by nature because they are lies when not taking into account all facts.
If we buy into the lie that alcohol is good for us then we are already aligned with the same energy that promotes alcohol as being safe in moderation. The excuses and justification to harm our body, raises the question, where is the love in this?
We know it is a lie, we all know alcohol is a poison, and toxic to our bodies.
When we just sit and be honest with what goes on in our body and what we feel — we naturally know what to do.
‘The drink you drink is not only affecting one cell, it affects all cells.’ Spot on Lee, there is so much research about the facts of alcohol and how it is a poison it seems crazy how society champions it and abuses it to excess, when it is so harming and damaging to the body.
And, when we look at this on a larger scale, if we are willing to see that humanity is, in fact, one huge body and each person is one cell, then if one person chooses to harm their body with alcohol or any substance, then in effect this is also harming the rest of humanity.
I was wondering about the wording ‘the abuse of alcohol’ as it can be read in different ways as in that we abuse alcohol or that alcohol abuses us or the abuse through the use of alcohol or the abuse that follows under the influence of alcohol as e.g. in violence, but all version leading to the one common nominator, it requires a person to choose abuse either on what may appear to be the receiving or the acting out end.
Great point Alex, there are so many perspectives on what is the abuse of alcohol from the start all the way to the end result. And the positive from that is the awareness of this that then allows us to make a change should we be ready to do so.
It is a well-known fact that alcohol is a known poison yet we continue to drink it. Does this not indicate that whatever is going on in our lives is so severe that we need to ignore this fact and allow the body to be poisoned? This is worth pondering on.
I’ve always found it interesting that people are prepared to drink or smoke knowing that it is permanently damaging their health. It’s also interesting that alcohol is known to increase violence, and you’d think if you ever hurt someone after drinking that would shock you enough to never do it again – especially if it was someone you dearly loved. It just shows that there is much more going on than we tend to fully realise, and we’d rather hurt ourselves and others than deal with what is actually going on.
Once you shut down, there is not even a problem in choosing for ourselves the same thing that caused the shut down in the first place.
A corruption that runs deep within, and accepted by, so much of our society
I tried and failed to give up caffeine many times, but eventually did, and boy is my life better without it. Strangely enough with alcohol I just stopped. No real thoughts or planning. I had lived with someone who had previously been addicted to alcohol, and so could no longer drink it without fear of his binges recurring, and so with the purpose of supporting him, it was very easy not to drink. I have never missed it once, and will never go back.
Yes we can get such strong impressions from seeing and feeling what is happening to those around us. I grew up witnessing alcohol abuse and the behaviours that ensued and found it difficult to accept how people I loved turned into people I did not know at all, behaving in ways that were so not like them. It stays engraved in your memory when you witness this as a young child, and certainly affected me to the point where later in life I tried alcohol a few times because of peer pressure but quickly learned that this was not what my body could handle and did not want to experience what I had seen others go through with alcohol use and abuse.
Absolutely when you are honest with yourself something very profound can shift….”What I discovered was that when you claim that you want to change, you are presented with opportunities that start to support that change: effectively you seed forth how you want to be and start to live that without perfection and things start to constellate, to come together so that the changes you want to live are supported.” So there is not trying, it unfolds and if you respond it continues to unfold to support you….beautiful…
What we need to understand is that with alcohol we distant ourselves to others as in fact we have already separated from ourselves in order to not feel how harsh and unloving the world is. Drinking alcohol is not a true solution to the dilemma we are in it is just a coping mechanism that is however very damaging in every aspect of our lives and the irony is that it contributes exactly to the kind of world we try to escape from.
It is so obvious the harm that drinking alcohol presents, first it is a poison that destroys our bodies, it destroys our relationships, it causes us to bring violence into our homes and to our children, and is a contributing factor to road accidents, and so much more. All these effects of alcohol are so obvious out there in the world, so what is it that stops us from stopping this abuse that is ruling our everyday lives.?
We cannot honestly deny that alcohol does not have a harmful effect on any one who consumes it let alone the effect of those around them. It is deeply disturbing that our current society sees that a young man transitioning into adulthood is initiate as such through the introduction of drinking alcohol, which is known by us all as a poison. How have we allowed this to be a right of passage so to speak, that abusing our bodies and begin is championed in such a way that if you don’t enjoin you are deemed weak and strange? This to me highlights that there is a deep-seated problem for us all to address, an unsettlement we are not willing to look at. We are clearly not content and fulfilled by being who we are as we need to escape and numb ourselves with a harmful poison which in all honesty does not make sense. Would we give alcohol to a newborn, if not why and why do any of us deserve any less?
If we do not speak up, then we feed the energy that is behind the consumption of alcohol and even if we are not listened to, the fact that we have called it out is enough and all that is needed in that moment.
It makes no sense that we train our body to consume this type of drink that makes us feel unwell and puke, to a point where we think that we are having a good time while harming the cells of our own body and others’. What is behind this thing must hate us humanity so much. Do we honestly want that?
I agree Fumiyo, there is no sense in consuming alcohol. The more we express what we know is true, what we can feel is behind the consciousness of alcohol through how we live with no need to ever consume alcohol, the more we expose the degree of harm and abuse that we are allowing to penetrate our society and communities with this poison.
As a society many turn a blind eye to the harms of alcohol, it is used and abused in the public arena and also behind closed doors. When will society begin to see the truth that alcohol is in fact a poison and is contributing to much harmful behaviours such as domestic violence.
Hear! Hear! Lee Green, well captured! Is it because alcohol has been around for so long and we grow up with it in our families that it is accepted. As Lee has beautifully claimed “and this is how we can allow and not claim that even once is too much, and too many times.”
There are families I know that are growing up with NO alcohol in the house or in their bodies. No alcohol is now my norm. This is the end of an ongoing cycle with me and ALL around me will benefit from my harmonious behaviour. As Lee has also said “What I discovered was that when you claim that you want to change, you are presented with opportunities that start to support that change”. This is true!
The violence and aggression associated with alcohol could be enough to stop this drink from being available at all, but because those parts are isolated and are not the general normality that most people experience, alcohol is regarded as acceptable in ‘small’ or ‘controlled’ doses – especially when it is for a social setting. But I can’t help but wonder if really this is about truth, and how much we as a society are willing to see the real reason why our young men and women turn to the drink in the first place…
And are we willing to let go of the comfort substances like alcohol or tobacco give us in face of the great harm we know them to cause? The harm is obvious and easy to point out, but hidden is the comforting benefit and the underlying hurt we don´t want or feel able to deal with. With every harming behaviour or habit we need to explore all the layers that lead up to it before we can really claim that we are free of the abuse.