Sober New Year

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Of course, active young people with such a life position are not the majority in our country, but if the people's anti-alcohol initiatives found a response in the power structures, it would not be at all difficult to sober up the Russian population …

All over the country, young people organize sober runs on January 1, right after the official holiday. At these events, contests, games, tea parties are organized. Of course, not everyone has the strength and desire for such activity, but everyone can meet the New Year soberly. Moreover, the tradition of celebrating this holiday with liters of alcohol, in fact, does not have such a long history. For example, the tradition of celebrating the New Year with a glass of champagne traces its history back only to 1956, when the film "Carnival Night" consolidated this harmful image among the vast majority of Soviet citizens.

Russia has traditionally been one of the most sober countries in the world. Only Norway drank less than us in Europe. We were in the penultimate place in the world in terms of per capita alcohol consumption for three centuries from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. And until the 17th century, pure alcohol was not produced in factories.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, per capita alcohol consumption has skyrocketed. It was less than 3 liters, and by 1914 it reached an unheard of for the so-called drunken tsarist Russia level of 4.7 liters (today this figure, according to various estimates, is 16-18 liters).

In 1914, on the eve of World War I, Russia adopted a dry law. As a result, the production and consumption of alcohol in Russia dropped to almost zero - less than 0.2 liters per person per year, that is, less than a glass of alcohol per person per year.

And only in 1960, Russia exceeded the average world alcohol consumption for 1980 by 5 liters.

And is this a tradition? No, traditions are formed much longer than 45 years! Therefore, the assertion that drunkenness is traditional in Russia is fundamentally wrong. We can only say that this is a "tradition" imposed on the Russian people and our entire country.

It may seem wild to an ordinary, “cultured drinker” person not to drink any alcoholic beverages during the holidays: “What, even a glass of wine, do not drink?”. But let's list the benefits of an absolutely sober holiday that await a strong-willed person with a clear First January look:

1. Freedom of movement. If you have a car, then you can safely move both on New Year's Eve and on the next day, delighting your family and friends - children, parents, friends - with your attention, activity and good mood.

2. Freedom from alcoholic programming. If you have children who see by your example that you can have fun without alcohol, then from childhood they will absorb the healthy and only true way of sobriety. And for you, the psychological effect of your own refusal of alcoholic holiday libations will help strengthen your sense of dignity and self-confidence.

3. New Year is a collective holiday, and it may happen that you will be the only sober person in the company. This is not a problem at all, because your friends are not celebrating New Years with you to get drunk? And if so, why do you need such friends? In the future, seeing your positive example, your sober resourcefulness and cheerfulness, more and more friends will change their views on alcoholic programming, and it will not be bad at all if they even feel a little flawed with a glass next to you. If on New Year's Eve some people do not get a dose of alcohol, then nothing bad will happen to them, and you can consider this your contribution to prolonging their life.

4. With your sober New Year, you can personally show the fat figs of the entire alcoholic mafia, the world government and other cannibals of the planet. Let this be your first step on the way out of the state of cattle and herd, where humanity is skillfully driven, including with alcohol. Well, as for the alcoholic lobby, which zombies the population through all possible channels and by all possible means, the very fact of resisting this power of zombies will speak for you. This means that you and those whom you inspire are, first of all, people, and not a herd that destroys itself for its own money. In addition, we must remember that the strongest alcoholic mafia was not born yesterday.

Let's give an example. "Prohibition" was in Russia in 1914 and 1985. The initiators of the "dry laws" were temperance popular movements. But the opposing forces were also great. One of the representatives of such forces, in 1911, Baron Ginzburg, alarmed by the growth of the anti-alcohol movement, declared in his circle: “I get more gold from the supply of vodka for state wine shops, from industrial distilling, than from all my gold mines. Therefore, the state sale of drinks must be preserved at any cost and justified in the eyes of the notorious public opinion."

There have even been attempts to prove that drinking "moderate" doses of alcohol is normal. In 1912, they turned to Academician I. P. Pavlov with a request to give an opinion on the project of creating a laboratory to substantiate the harmlessness of moderate alcohol consumption. The scientist replied with the following letter: “An institute that sets itself the indispensable goal of discovering the harmless use of alcohol has no right to be called or be considered scientific … his vote against the establishment of an institute of such a name … ".

After the adoption of "Prohibition" in 1985, shameless vilification erupted, appealing now to "folk traditions", now to "human rights", queues for vodka were artificially created, riots and fights were organized in them, this was covered by the media. Articles criticizing the dry law have appeared. In particular, I. Lisochkin writes: “… The protracted struggle (meaning the struggle for a sober lifestyle after the decision of the Central Committee of the party in May 1985), without giving any real results, cost the state budget more than four Chernobyls (39 billion versus 8); the number of those poisoned by surrogates significantly exceeded the losses in the terrible war in Afghanistan "or" … the ribs of respectable citizens crack in kilometer lines … ".

Here is what Academician FG Uglov, the famous fighter for sobriety, answers: “Yes, we really did not receive 39 billion in the budget. But this is a brilliant and great blessing for the people. We drink about 33 billion rubles worth of alcohol a year. For this we pay with millions of people who die from alcohol-related causes and the birth of 200 thousand handicapped and mentally disabled children. And if we have not drunk this poison in an amount exceeding the annual income, then we have saved more than a million lives and avoided the birth of 250 thousand handicapped children. And this fact terrifies Lisochkin. He would like the plan to sell the narcotic poison to be overfulfilled, so that even more people, both adults and children, die.

He is worried that 12-13 thousand died from poisoning with surrogates. But it is well known that without any restrictions on the sale of alcohol, thousands of people die from surrogates. At the same time, not everyone knows (and Lisochkin does not write about this) that 40 thousand of our fellow citizens die annually only from acute alcohol poisoning. This is four times more than the death toll from the use of surrogates - and the author is silent on this matter.

As for the broken ribs of respectable citizens, I am deeply convinced that not a single respectable, self-respecting citizen will stand in a kilometer line for vodka. And in drunken fights, ribs are broken many times more.

Lisochkin sheds a tear about the "poor" drunks standing in line for their own misfortune. I feel sorry for the unfortunate monsters, handicapped and mentally handicapped children, who are born from those who stand in kilometer-long lines. If the author saw these unfortunate people (and there are hundreds of thousands of them!), Doomed to a semi-animal, hopeless existence in orphanages with living parents, he might have treated differently to those who, losing their human dignity, stand for hours in queues for liquid that robs them of the remnants of their mind."

The "dry law" was to the liking of the citizens of our country. After 1985, the profit from sobriety was 3-4 times higher than the shortfall from the sale of alcoholic tobacco poisons. Nevertheless, due to the dominance of certain social groups, the observance of the "dry law" ceased.

But back in 1975, WHO concluded that without legislative (that is, prohibitive) measures, all types of anti-alcohol propaganda are ineffective.

Every reasonable person should know: alcohol brings great material benefits to businessmen like Baron Ginzburg, and to the state and people - only ruin and death. Therefore, the "Ginzburgs" do not need a "dry law" either.

Meet the New Year soberly!