Words from Dic(tionary)

Alcoholic: (n) 1. containing an alcoholic liquor 2. a person suffering from alcoholism.

The most difficult thing in life, in my opinion, is to balance freedom and common sense. Honestly, we do it very poorly.

When we err on the side of freedom, we indiscriminately promote ideas which are detrimental to the human family.

Likewise, when we take the other extreme of common sense, we create burdens and rules which inhibit the liberty necessary for our race to move forward.

How is it possible to allow for freedom and common sense to co-exist in the same room without both of them resorting to fisticuffs?

This is my feeling about alcohol: I have grown weary of the notion that we establish our adult sensibilities by allowing ourselves permission to drink fermented fluids which have proven themselves to be devastating to members of our earthly clan. But by the same token, prohibiting the imbibing of these refreshments is unsuccessful and unrealistic, considering that they have been around for thousands of years, and even Jesus Christ took boring water and made it wine.

I think we need extraordinarily anointed and intelligent leadership, which knows how to promote freedom while establishing common sense. Here are several questions about alcohol I have never heard adequately answered:

1. Is it truly healthy? Are we better off having some alcohol in our lives, or not?
2. Are there people who are just cursed to be alcoholics by their genetic configuration, or is it an acquired vice which can happen to anyone at any time, simply based upon the level of consumption?
3. Is there an adequate alternative to alcohol which would provide stimulus without promoting drunkenness?
4. Is it possible to be a social drinker without finding yourself in the company of those who exaggerate their need and exacerbate situations by becoming either dangerous on the highway or confrontational?
5. And finally, how can we promote the consumption of alcohol so that our movies and our society do not present it as a rite of passage, causing younger folks to feel mature by sneaking it?

I am unwilling to concede that freedom and common sense cannot be brothers in the cause of the betterment of humanity.

I personally don’t drink and never have. It’s because the questions I listed have not been answered to my satisfaction, so therefore, rather than pursuing the ridiculous … I select the sublime.