Alcoholism and Nicotine

It is not the first time that I've heard that one drink of alcohol per day can actually help prevent heart attacks in older people. It was hard for me to believe that because I thought "well, alcohol is bad and a lot of people become alcoholics that may lose everything in this world just as long as they have an alcoholic drink in their hands." I thought they just meant whichever form of alcohol instead in the book I read that 'a glass of certain wines can help prevent heart attacks in older people.' This made more sense for me, of course. Alcohol is known to be the most abused drug by many people. Alcohol in very big quantities impairs judgment leading to unwanted pregnancies, STD's, problems with the law, car accidents, loosing of homes, families and even jobs. I never knew my grandfather but my grandmother always told me stories of how much he drank and smoked on a regular basis. This of course lead to a very unsuccessful marriage for my grandmother and hard times for my mom and her brother, since my grandfather wouldn't stop his drinking, smoking. He drank day and night. When he was less than 50 years old he died because of lung cancer. According to my grandmother, he had begun smoking since he was 11 years old and began drinking at 12 years old because of problems he had at home with his family (or so, I've been told). He was diagnosed with cancer and died just 3 months after that. My grandmother always told me how his lungs were extremely dark and how much agony he went through for 3 months. She also told me, that even when he was diagnosed he still managed to hide a cigarette box in his truck and would still smoke even after he knew he was going to die. I guess this relates to what a drug can do. No matter how much pain and problems one may encounter, their drug is always the solution. Going back to alcohol, even though my grandfather didn't die because he drank too much, I still know that his body probably showed some signs of alcoholism. I also want to point out that his father was a heavy drinker as well. So this leads me to genetics, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he began drinking at such a young age. It must have been pretty hard to have a dad as a heavy drinker and how random it was that they drank together since he was the only boy in the family. Anyways, I still think that each person decides if they want to follow other people's footsteps or not. My mother witnessed my grandfather's heavy drinking and smoking, and I can say that my mother has never smoked before and has never liked to drink alcohol. She did not inherit my grandfather's tolerance for drinks because when she drinks one glass of wine that is more than enough for her. My uncle on the other side doesn't smoke at all either, but drinks at family events at times without getting drunk or anything. With this said, drug abuse varies from person to person, bottom-line it never has good outcomes, especially when abused.

The following video is pretty straight forward about the effects of alcohol and smoking on the human body: