Gazza - Alcohol - Society

I turned on the computer this morning to check out some on line news publications and one of the first stories i seen was very disturbing indeed.  It was a story about one of England's greatest players Mr Paul Gascoigne. Most people are aware at this stage that Gaza has been fighting alcoholism most of his adult life.  We are all very aware of his challenges as his life from he was a young guy playing his football at Spurs has been played out in front of the worlds media.

This mornings article included a video of Gaza who was speaking at a dinner last Tuesday night, clearly in a very fragile state.  He spoke or more like tried to speak for over 10 minutes and it was a very sad site indeed.  He had clearly consumed alot of alcohol, his talking was blurred and he was physically shaking uncontrollably.  It was an absolute disgrace that the organisers of the event allowed this to happen.

In any case, the bottom line is it reflected really what i feel the attitude society has taken to people who have a drink problem or those referred to as alcoholics.  The facts are i don't think people really give much of a damn to be honest.  Alcoholism is rife in society and it kills more people every year than many illnesses put together, yet there is still a school of thought out there that its maybe not even really an illness.  I would ask those of this mindset to go visit some of the clinics dedicated to fighting the illness and educate yourselves better. Post this visit,  I'm sure you will then accept the fact that it sure is one hell of an illness - one of the worst out there today.

Drink when in full flow is like a nuclear bomb, in that it destroys everything in its path - a devastating disease in every sense of the word.
In Paul Gascoignes case it was another very public reminder for me this morning how we have come to nearly accept it as if its just something that happens to somebody else, and theres nothing you can do about it.

Well there is lots you can do about it, and i have a number of friends who were close to death, decided they needed to take action,  started to fight back and are now making a fantastic contribution to society - alcohol free.

I hope Gazza gets the support and strength from somewhere to start fighting back.  My real worry though in his case is that he is runnig out of time.  I hope I am wrong.