BY LINDA MCGRATH-REDMOND
Susan Christina (Irish Founder and fearless leader of Hola Sober) has a real gift for speaking and she consistently uses her talent to shout loud and clear about the lie we women have bought into hook, line, and sinker regarding alcohol. She has provided us with the platform and now we too must play our part and take a stand and above all make no apologies about it! Lives truly do depend on it. Will my generation see the day when alcohol, like cigarettes, is no longer allowed to use multi- media platforms to promote and advertise a product that causes millions of deaths annually? Will the packaging ever reflect the long-term health risks including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, digestive problems, and the 7 different types of cancers (breast and colon to name but two) that can and do occur? "Drink responsibly" doesn’t cut it as it allows the alcohol industry to take absolutely no accountability and treats us with disdain when the very product they sell chemically unbalances our brains so that ‘acting responsibly’ isn’t even an option. If acting responsibly after a drink or two was indeed possible why is it that we cannot legally drive a car? Because it has already been proven that even one drink can impair our ability to drive responsibly, two most definitely do! I can only hope that future generations will look back in astonishment and horror at how casually we promoted and bought into the lie that alcohol is just harmless fun and a sophisticated accessory to our lives. The way we look at cigarettes now is that the truth is out there. No, smoking hasn’t gone away, but so many having clearly seen the dangers have made the choice to say no thanks. And that’s how it should be. As with everything, we cannot change the past. But we can make the changes necessary to make the future a lot better and that starts with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
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