Confessions of a Teen Alcoholic
The beginning, was innocent in appearance - merely a bottle of my father's beer, in order to calm myself before the big exam.
My first drink, an experiment recommended by a friend in the senior class, was meant only as a last resort - I needed to pass this test, you realize. Ah, but how that amber liquid metamorphosed to pure silk in my mouth, sloshing down my throat at first, quickly changing to a tender caress. The first sip, followed by a second, and a third, and so on in rapid sequence. I proceded to another bottle, just as possessed of tranquility as the first. When my temples throbbed with the excruciating intensity of a thousand bass drums the subsequent morning, the lucidity gained from the previous night's feast with Bacchus had somehow slipped from my grasp. I failed the exam, so piercing was my headache.
Upon arriving home, I made my way directly to the liquor cabinet, in the hopes of discovering a tangible comfort to assuage the misery brought on by my scholarly defeat. A mostly filled bottle of bourbon sat in the foremost corner of the cabinet. I swallowed it all down that afternoon, and was left with an empty decanter - which I stowed away in the cellar, lest my parents know of this newfound pastime – and a somewhat intriguing sense of inebriation. Days, weeks, months passed, and I found myself indulging in alcohol much more often, for a myriad of reasons. One day, I had a terrible quarrel with my girlfriend - a bit of Jack Daniels put that unpleasant situation out of my mind.
Once, I had a rough time with my coach at soccer practice. Not a problem, simply gulp down a few glasses of mother's Bordeaux. The more time I spent with my dear friend John Barleycorn, the more difficult it was to be away from him. The cravings grew to the point where I needed a drink to get myself awake in the morning, while another was necessary to last through my afternoon classes. Alcohol was the focus of any social activity, it was my entire life, and yet I would not admit it. I hid my addiction every moment of every day, storing empty cans and bottles in the attic when there was not a single inconspicuous space left in the basement.
One in every twelve adults suffer from alcoholism in the United States, and it is the most commonly used addictive substance in the world. The World Health Organization has defined alcoholism as “an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency.” Reiterated themes encompassing Jeannette Walls’ father’s addiction to alcohol are found in her novel, The Glass Castle: a memoir, which displays instances of financial instability and abuse that hurt the Walls children for the rest of their lives. The Walls’, altogether, are emotionally, physically, and mentally affected by Rex’s alcoholism, which leads to consequences on the Walls children.
It is a fact of life that Alcoholism will distort the victim’s view of reality. With authors, they put parts of their personality and symptoms of their condition into their characters sometimes, flawed distortions included, with varying degrees
A Democratic Party long ruled by moderates and conservatives succeeded in stunting what seemed like the natural growth of a successful Republican Party until the 1990s. Since then, various forces have contributed to the growth of the Republicans, and in the end, to an altering of the core membership of each party. Most recently, the state has seen the development of a dominant Republican Party that doesn't yet hold quite the dominion the Democrats enjoyed through most of the twentieth century. The Republican Party has certainly benefited from the defection of former Democrats, the arrival of Republicans and independents from out of state, and organizational difficulties in the Democratic Party. Thus, Republican officials dominate state government, and Democrats find themselves reduced, for the present, to the status of an embattled minority party seeking to recreate themselves among their voting and financial constituencies. This is showing that the newfound Republican dominance can be the beginning of a new strong party system, or if we are in a state of transition in which the terms of political competition are still in change. If it is a new party system, I don’t think it will be very durable or last too long for that matter. Now, it seems that Republican dominance of state government will
It’s hard to imagine a period in American political history that hasn’t been dominated by a duopoly of political parties. Even though resistance from the founding fathers on the issue of political parties is well documented, the two-party system we are well accustomed to developed shortly after the emergence of the United States as an independent nation. Whether it was the Federalist/Democratic-Republican system in the late 18th and early 19th centuries or the Democratic/Republican system we know today, two ideologically opposite parties have always maintained dominant control of the American political system. The existence of third parties and independent candidates, therefore, complicates the political system that we have used for centuries. Steven Rosenstone contends that the existence of our current two-party system is due, in part, to the ability of the two major parties to provide benefits in exchange for voter support. What then occurs when either of the major parties fails in its responsibility to be accountable to the public? While several options exist, including the demand for change within major parties, third parties and independent candidates become a viable option to restore a sense of accountability among American politicians. Even though third parties and independent candidates might seem attractive to voters, they often are unable to find success in any major elections. This lack of success can be attributed to many different factors, including constitutional and electoral barriers, as well as deficiencies born from the general lack of knowledge about third parties. Why then do third parties and independent candidates continue to exist in American politics? The ability of a third party to influence the policy p...
Previously, Hasen describes Democrats as being the ones who want more people to have access to voting. Republicans, on the other hand, are painted as the ones who want stricter voter registration to preserve the integrity of elections. A problem with our voting system is we cannot be sure of the integrity, as in almost every election, there is some sort of fraud claim. Hasen looks into one of the main problems in our voting system; how we vote. Hasen discusses why different methods of electronic voting are present, what they intended to accomplish by implementing these systems, and the issues associated with
Drinking: A Love Story (1996) is a memoir by Caroline Knapp where she shares her experience of gradually becoming an alcoholic. She found drinking to be the most important relationship in her life; she loved how it made her feel, how it coped with her fears and worries. She chronicles some of the effort and self-realization required for recovery from this addiction, but her primary focus is on the charm, seductiveness, and destructiveness that she was able to find in two decades as an alcoholic, hopelessly in love with liquor. Her relationship with alcohol started in early teenage years and progressed through young adulthood, until she finally checked herself into a rehabilitation center at the age of thirty-four.
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
To conclude, third party political organizations offer a different perspective to look at some of the nation’s leading issues. By analyzing these topics outside of the status quo dominant political parties, one can gain a fuller understanding of how to solve the issue at hand. The Constitutional and the Libertarian Party help contribute to an overall sense of America’s issues and some of the possible solutions.
The Israeli-Palestine conflict is an event that has been well documented throughout the course of Middle-Eastern history. The conflict dates back as far as the nineteenth century where Palestine and Zionist, will later be known as Israel, are two communities each with different ideologies had the same overwhelming desire to acquire land. However, what makes this clash what it is, is the fact that both of these up and coming communities are after the same piece of land. The lengths that both sides went to in order obtain they believed was theirs has shaped the current relationship between the two nations today.
If their favorite party 's candidate has no chance to win, they turn to the less objectionable of the major-party candidates who does have a chance to win. Elections in the United States have almost always been winner-take-all affairs, so the rules have continually worked to reduce the viable options to two. The winner-take-all logic applies only within a given electoral unit; it does not require that the same two parties face each other in every electoral unit. But for purposes of electing a president, the entire Unites States works as a single electoral unit. The contest for the presidency became so central to electoral politics that it shaped party competition for lesser offices as
Despite being the constant underdog and loser in major elections third parties make some significant contribution to the political spectrum in the United States. Third Party Agendas are taken serious by the Democratic and Republican Parties and specific pieces of the Third Party Agendas are sometimes adopted by the two major parties. Third parties give discontented voters other alternatives. The Republican and Democratic Parties have been known to operate in similar styles and third parties give the voter the opportunity to express their discontent. The third parties in the United States are policy advocates and often are more specific about were they stand ideologically. Often the Republican and Democratic Parties try and take a moderate approach to political issues, and third parties are more conservative or liberal when it comes to political issues. Also, third parties tend to do exactly the opposite when their agenda concerns social issues. Then there is the ?spoiler factor? a Third Party Candidate can collect enough votes to change the outcome of a Presidential Election.
Schmidt, Shelley, and Bardes. American Politics and Government Today. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999, pgs. 325-327.
Landy, Marc and Sidney M. Milkis. American Government: Balancing Democracy and Rights. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
My assignment was to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting and write my observations and thoughts on the meeting, its structure and philosophical beliefs. I was extremely uncomfortable about attending such a personal meeting. Would individuals welcome me or feel as if I would judge? Even though I was uncomfortable, I am glad I attended the meeting as it was a very enlightening experience for me.
To sum up, the future trend of the Sino-US relation is to cooperate through competition, which is the “competitive coexistence”. China is growing, which is the reality that the U.S has to accept, and the interdependence between China and the U.S is stronger than ever before both politically and economically. Therefore, just as Robert (2013) pointed out in his article “the explore of a new type of great-power relationship would not only help the most two powerful countries to avoid the Thucydides trap, but also allow the world to become more vibrant and invigorated”. In other words, cooperate bring more benefits to the U.S. rather than compete with the rising China.