Alcoholism is defined as “a chronic disorder characterized by dependence on alcohol”. Alcohol is an addiction that can destroy lives. Just like cigarettes and drugs, alcohol can destroy the lives of many, and many lives around them. Like a virus, alcohol spreads to the under aged by means of the media, and an influence by the adults. Every year, hundreds of our youth’s lives are taken do to alcohol.
I have chosen to not walk down the path to alcoholism because I know what it can do, and I have seen what it has done. I look upon alcohol as a drug, a drug that has become a disease to 22 million people in our country. This disease affects us all in a way, and I wish not to be a part of it. The sad stories I’ve been told about alcohol makes me ask the question “why do people continue even when knowing that it will have a depressing result?” A friend of mine once told me of how when he got drunk he started seeing demons, and that’s when he knew it was time to stop. It’s stories like his that keep me away from alcohol. My friend grew up on alcohol, and now he is 27 with no education past high school and with a job that pays only $7 an hour. Not only does alcohol destroy lives of our youth, but it also destroys their futures.
--Patrick