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Al-Anon Alive 08/2010

If you are suffering because someone close to you drinks too much, there is a seat for you at this meeting.

Wisconsin's drinking culture is traditional

and a learned behavior. Another study on drunken driving highlights the need to do some unlearning.

Come to an Al-anon meeting if you are impacted by someone else's drinking or drugging. Ours, Easy Does It, meets every Friday night at 7:30 pm at the Pass It On Club.

From the Journal Sentinel

Posted: April 23, 2008

Perhaps the most significant thing about another study on drunken driving that puts Wisconsin at the top of a bad list is not the actual numbers involved but the reaction of researchers. "I'm not shocked; I'm not surprised," said one. Nor was another: "I think that's what we've seen historically," he said.

That points to a need for better education, stiffer penalties for drunken driving and a change in the state's notorious drinking culture. That won't be easy, but lives really do depend on making that change.

The nationwide survey asked participants if during the previous 12 months they had driven a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. That is a "pretty subjective" question as Nina J. Emerson, director of the Resource Center on Impaired Driving at the University of Wisconsin Law School, put it. Maybe Wisconsin residents were just more honest than respondents in other states.

But the results still were disturbing: More than 26% of Wisconsin adults 18 and older answered yes to the question. That was the highest percentage of any state and more than 70% above the national average of 15.1%. The lowest was Utah with 9.5%.

The results are very much in line with other research. In Wednesday's article by the Journal Sentinel's Rick Romell, Emerson pointed out that Wisconsin's number of taverns and other alcohol outlets per person is more than three times greater than the national average (Admitted drunken driving leads nation). And drunken driving laws here are relatively lenient, she said.

The state is "No. 1 or close on many indicators of adult alcohol use and potentially risky use," said Paul Moberg, senior scientist in the Population Health Institute at UW-Madison and co-author of a 2007 study on Wisconsin's alcohol and drug use patterns. "And it's historically been that way."

Among changes that are necessary are stricter enforcement and stiffer penalties for drunken driving. But as Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has argued, the state's drinking culture is a learned behavior. It can be unlearned but only through the concerted efforts of community leaders, law enforcement, public education and, perhaps most of all, parents.

It's long past time to stop sending the message that drinking just to get drunk is a fun way to pass the time in Wisconsin.

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