The Lucknow Sentinel, 1985-08-07, Page 14G/
Page 14--Lucknow. Sentinel, Wednesday, August 7, 1985
Panel onalc�hol hassoberingwords
BY STEPHANIE LEVESQUE
EDITOR'S NOTE: The followingarticle is
the first in a three part.series on alcohol:
"Do me this favor ... if you drink, don't
drive,. I've seen too many bodies that look
like water."
. The strong statement didn't end tliere.
"Don't take my wife or someone else in
my family; go alone. If you must drink/and
drive don't take someone in the car with
you."
These offthe cuff comments came from
the police chief of Listowel to a ,group of
students at the local high school.
He was part of a panel of professionals the
• school's guidance department brought in
during a two-week program on health and
lifestyles in the 80's. However, he wasn't the
only one to bring an important message.
Some very powerful words 'were spoken
by a young man who had come from within
the students'. own ranks. He had been raised
in town 'and was very popular as an athlete
and eventually as coach of the town's Junior
B hockey team.
"Sporting activities were extremely im-
portant to me," said the young man who will
remain nameless for'this article.
':I've done it all. I've been drinking with
people inthe car going 100 miles an hour."
He recalled times spent drinking with
friends, times that ended up being all-
nighters. He carried this on from his high
schooldays to his married days.
"I',ve got a family," he says quietly. "I
want to make sure that everything goes well
with that family."
seen too many
bodies look like water..."
He eventually got caught and charged
with impaired driving during his tenure as
coach. The small town buzzed with the
news.
"What affected me was the tremendous
amount of guilt and remorse."
He openly admitted he cannot drink and
admits the hardest thing for him is to be in
control of what is happening while he is ,
drinking. If he and some friends were con-
sidering going to a neighbouring town, the
call went out for beer - the response came
that the beer was available and then it was
okay to go to the town. Nothing could be
done without alcohol.
"Alcoholism is a disease of the body, the
mind. It destroys certain things," he said.
"Nothing restricts me. now, it's very ina-
portant//that you remember that."
He asked the students to be aware of how
damaging alcohol is to them.
Another young man, a university student
now, had grown up in town and he too was
respected as an athlete. At 17 he went to Ot-
tawa to play hockey and at one point he was
called to a tryout camp for the NHL hockey
team the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"Drinking hurt my chances to make
hockey my professional career," he said.
He wasn't alone, however: Others also lost
chances at professional hockey careers
because of booze.
Drinking wasn't and isn't limited to the
male domain. One young woman from
Listowel who is now in university said she
felt a lot of pressure to drink in high school.
"Vodka doesn't smell, so I drank a lot of
orange juice," she said.
She was involved in heavyI drinking at the
SPECIAL
beginning of her 'university days, but after
sone personal, scary experiences, she has
joined a club called BACCUS - Boost Alcohol
Consciousness Concerning University
Students. 6 l
"I know now how to have fun without
booze. Excessive drinking scares me."
Nick Warus, one of the school's guidance
personnel responsible for putting the pro-
gram together said the comments.made by
the former students are fairly typical of
what he calls small town Ontario.
"These towns are loaded with kids that
are bored. The bright lights of the city are
appealing. The kids make their own excite-
ment."
Anemployee from the, detoxification cen-
tre in Kitchener said drinking has to be
made . socially unacceptable among
teenagers.
"Alcohol is a potential killer," he said.
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