The Barfly.....are you having a drink or is the drink having you?

I used to see them on the way to the conservatorium.

The ''Barflies''.

Waiting for the doors to the pubs and liquor stores to open.

Reeking of urine, excrement and cheap booze.

Sucking on crooked cigarette butts, coughing, and talking to themselves.

Unkempt, unsteady, and unaware of the rest of the world.

Mere shells of who they once were;

Someone's dad, someone's mother, 

someone's sister, someone's brother, 

someone's son, someone's daughter.

Two doors down from where I live,

a mother lost her son to alcohol.

Her son's life had spun out of control due

to his drinking and standing before the court, 

the son was given a choice: jail or moving in with

his mother. His mother brought him home with her.

He committed to go to AA, to get control of his life again,

and his mother supported her son the best way she could.

She believed him when he said he was getting his drinking

under control. However, coming back home after having spent a few

days away with her sister, she found her son dead at the bottom

of the stairs. After his body had been taken away and the mother

started to clean out the stuff in his bedroom, she found

that the wardrobes in his bedroom were full of empty bottles 

and wine casks. 

Sadly, her son never managed to silence the ''siren song'' of alcohol.

It took his life.

There is a saying: ''First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, 

and then the drink takes you.'' (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I find it problematic that there often seem to be

double standards when it comes to alcohol:

We know that alcohol abuse and misuse, is detrimental

in many ways to most societies, yet we advertise it, we sell it,

we serve it, we promote it, we portray it as a ''social lubricant'',

etc.etc.

We tell our children not to drink, although we ourselves do,

you are a wuss if you don't drink, you're a drunk if you 

drink too much, you're a ''lightweight'' if you don't drink ''enough'',

you're a ''party-pooper'' if you don't drink at all, etc.etc.

We condemn and judge those who we consider to drink ''too much'', 

too little, too often, too seldom. We drink when we feel down, when we feel happy,

when we feel angry, when we feel frustrated, basically, if we feel we need

to have a reason for drinking, we will find one.

We often find it easier to judge other's drinking habits, than 

to objectively view our own habits.

Occasionally we also use alcohol use as an excuse for bad behaviour:

''My bad, I was drunk, or Ignore what I said, I was drunk, or I am

so sorry I did that, I had had too much to drink, or It meant nothing,

I was drunk.''

We have warning labels on cigarettes and poisons, descriptions of side-effects on

prescriptions, but no such thing on ''drinking'' alcohol.

 (Beer, wine, whiskey, gin, etc.etc.)

If there was a label to go on bottles containing drinking alcohol, 

maybe it could

say this: 

So, here's my thinking:

Should perhaps those who make money out of selling alcohol

perhaps also be the one's picking up the bills for

the damage it does to society?

Or at least have to put warning labels on their products and

 be prevented from advertising it as something glorious

and fun?

What's your opinion?