When you have just found out that your car has been stolen or your stocks have taken a turn for the worse, the last thing anyone thinks about is alcohol awareness. The lessons learned in these classes can be vital to not contributing another problem to your life – alcoholism.
Alcohol has the direct effect of making the situations you’re in even worse. The chemical make-up of alcohol depresses the system, slowing it down to a crawl, even though you think it’s doing just fine. It slows your response time while in the bar, so what do you think it’s going to do behind the wheel?
By getting informed about the full effects of alcohol, and not just how the buzz starts, you can keep yourself from being another statistic. Alcohol claims the top spot among addictions for the U.S., pulling in more than 12 million hardcore alcoholics, and those are just the ones in or out of rehabilitation. By becoming aware and informed through self-study or through a professional class, the chances of you and your family members experiencing alcohol problems drop drastically.
The Numbers:
America doesn’t have the highest population in the world, but somehow within the U.S. there is an alcohol related accident every 30 minutes! You can avoid being part of these statistics by seeking information about alcohol abuse. The more education and information that you and your family receive, the less likely that you, your spouse, or your kids will end up being addicted to alcohol, or even receiving a criminal conviction.
You may ask, what does being a felon have to do with alcohol? Well, up to 73% of all felonies are committed by alcoholics or alcohol abusers as well as 73% of all cases of child abuse being committed by an alcoholic or while a person is intoxicated.
Reduces Accidents
You know for a fact that drinking and driving can be a fatal combination. But it can be avoided. In 2004 the University of Missouri ran a study in conjunction with the state of Oregon to make a law stating that all new drivers have to take an alcohol awareness class. This class concentrated on the dangers of binge drinking, which has been linked to not only to a large of D.W.I.’s (Drinking While Intoxicated) that get reported, but also to tens of thousands of property damage cases.
In the first year that Oregon brought in the alcohol education statute, the amount of alcohol related crashes dropped 11%, in the second year it had dropped 18%, and in the final year it showed a drop of accidents involving alcohol by 23%. When looking at these numbers you may not think that’s a lot, but 23% is a nearly a full ¼ of a 100% drop! Imagine getting 23% off your next car!
I think it has become clear that alcohol awareness classes reduce accidents and saves lives, and keeps people informed of the dangers of binge drinking and alcohol poisoning.