Drinking Is The New Smoking

Changing how we view alcohol

My father drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes every day for 45 years. At the age of 64, he suffered a stroke — and died in the hospital two weeks later.

In the end, he was a shell of a man, shrinking further and further into himself. The years of drinking and smoking had wreaked havoc on his body and his brain.

It was gut-wrenching to watch him waste away in the last two weeks of his life. He was unable to speak — getting thinner and weaker each day.

I’ll never know the answer for sure, but I’ve often wondered how much smoking had to do with it and how much alcohol was to blame.

We know that both drinking and smoking can cause a stroke — so I’m sure they both played a part.

That’s when it dawned on me how much worse alcohol is than cigarettes.

As toxic as cigarette smoking is, it still pails in comparison to the destructive ability of alcohol.

My entire childhood, and my life for that matter, was impacted by my father’s drinking.

He could be moody, erratic, angry, and verbally abusive. This was a direct result of his drinking — not his smoking.