Green Heart Guidance
  • Home
  • About Elizabeth
  • Specialties
    • Healing Trauma, Abuse and Loss
    • Health Challenges and Chronic Illness
    • Pregnancy and Infant Loss
    • Healing Messages
    • Pet Services
    • Remote Home Viewings
    • Green Living
    • Organic Eating and Food Sensitivities
  • Guidance
    • Consultation Fees
    • Classes
    • CEU Seminars
    • Client Forms >
      • Liability Form
      • Policies and Procedures Agreement
      • New Client Information
      • New Pet Client Information
      • Bereavement Questionnaire
    • Payment Options
  • Blog
  • Contact Me

Ignoring Alcohol Issues

4/12/2015

0 Comments

 
Ignoring Alcohol Issues by Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.
One of my grandmothers died when I was 17, just days before I left for college. Her funeral was a powerful event in my life, an ending to one part of my life as I moved into a different one. The gathering after the graveside services was held at my mother’s home where I had previously lived. The guests trickled in after a 45 minute drive from the cemetery, and almost all of them brought alcohol with them. One set of in-laws brought a full shoe box of liquor bottles. My grandmother had been married to an Irishman for 30 years, and anyone with strong Irish genes will testify to the abundance of alcohol at most traditional Irish and Irish-American wakes. Yet as I watched all of this alcohol being brought in, my teenage self was able to see a clear irony: My grandmother had been an alcoholic as was her late husband. He died from his drinking; she recovered. She was sober for the entirety of my memory, but that does not erase all the years in which she drank. Even at that young age, it seemed horribly inappropriate to me to commemorate the life of an alcoholic with an abundance of alcohol.

Likewise, every time Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” comes on the radio, I cringe and turn the station. Just those first lyrics of “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, ‘No, no, no‘” make me shudder. I don’t understand why radio stations feel it’s appropriate to play a song about an individual refusing to go to rehab when the singer herself died at age 27 from alcohol poisoning likely due to an unintentional overdose. While I’ve never liked the original song or this remake, I do understand it was popular in the general culture. However, it seems to be the song of hers that is most played on the radio almost four years after her death; I only rarely hear “You know I’m No Good” and “Back to Black.” Somehow I doubt that the song is being played as reminder to listeners of the consequences of overdrinking. I often wonder, though, if I’m the only one who sees the irony in "Rehab" being the primary song of hers that is still played.

Our society’s relationship to alcohol is a strange one indeed. We know it’s a problem, and yet we refuse to see the problem right when it’s in front of us. We continue to celebrate a singer who died from an alcohol overdose by frequently playing a song about refusing therapeutic treatment for alcohol addiction. While drunk driving rates have been cut in half in the past 35 years, almost half of all driving fatalities still involve alcohol. I know of too many adults who, despite being educated about the dangers of drunk driving, continue to drive under the influence. I hope that our society will someday start to understand the discordance between our words and our actions around alcohol use and abuse. By ignoring alcohol-related problems, we compound the issues rather than helping solve them.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Join our newsletter list

    Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.

    Holistic Life Coach and
    Intuitive Energy Healer

    Categories

    All
    Abuse
    Announcements
    Body
    Body Mind Spirit
    Chronic Illness
    Crystals
    Death
    Disabilities
    Family
    Gender
    General Guidance
    Green Living
    Helping Others
    Holidays
    Infant Loss
    Inspirational Mantras
    Lyme
    Marriage And Divorce
    Meditation
    Metaphysical Gifts
    Mind
    Multiple Chemical Sensitivities
    Narcissism
    Natural Healing
    Nutrition
    Parenting
    Past Lives
    Personal Growth
    Pets
    Popular Culture
    Pregnancy And Childbirth
    Product Recommendations
    Reviews
    Sexuality
    Spirit
    Spirituality And Religion
    Stress Release
    Subsequent Pregnancy After A Loss
    The Other Side
    The Single Life
    Trauma
    World Events

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    November 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    RSS Feed

Services

Green Living
Healing Messages and Intuitive Energy Work
Health Challenges and Chronic Illness
Organic Eating and Food Sensitivities
Pet Psychic Services
Pregnancy and Infant Loss
Remote Home Viewing

About Green Heart Guidance

About Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D.
Contact Elizabeth
Consultation Fees
Client Forms

Social Media

​Facebook
Flickr
Goodreads
Instagram

LinkedIn
Pinterest
Spotify
Twitter
Youtube
Subscribe to GHG's Newsletter