Beating The Booze Blues (1977)

[Music] Quick, give me another shot of that stuff. Have a couple beers. What happens, people? Oh, my breast smells horrible. Good. Kind of burned the throat, but it's good. What if I throw up? Maybe my eyes. Are you swerving? Hi, Ray. [Applause] He fell for me. This program was put together by high school students in a health club called Youth Gives a Damn. We staged a concert at Huntington Park High School with skits, songs, and demonstrations about liquor use, and abuse. To help us tell our story, we've asked someone special to join us. You'll recognize him as Boom Boom Washington from the Carter Show. Lawrence Hilton Jacobs. [Applause] Hi there. How's everybody doing? All right. All right. Nike. Hey, while we were getting this film together here, we did a survey to find out how much you drink. Now, we pulled nearly 400 high school students. 35% of you said you drink at least once a week and 18% of you sweat hogs said you drink at least three times a week, if not more. Now, that's one out of every six. Now, obviously, you guys are making decisions about drinking, right? Okay. Now, what we want to look into is this thing that you're making decisions about. So, let's get into beating the booze blues. All right. When you look at yourself, do you like what you see? If you like what you see, you're the person you should be because your reflection reflects in everything you do and everything you do on you. There's been surveys. There's been a lot of talk and it is a lot of reality that a lot of young people of junior high and high school ages have been getting more and more involved with alcohol and it seems to becoming a very serious thing. Um, do you find this to be true? I know there's a lot of people who's drink you know who are drinking now. I don't get drunk at all. I just drink to taste that's all. I believe in sociable drinking. When you wake up each day, do you like how you feel? If you like how you feel, you got nothing to conceal. Have you ever drunk? Uh, I wish I could say no cuz I know, you know, a lot of people are going to be listening to this, but I used to drink a lot. I'm I mean, I'm not I wasn't an alcoholic or anything. You drank a lot and you weren't an alcoholic and you're 16, right? Am I right? Okay. Why Why was that? Everybody else would be drinking so I'd start drinking, too. And then pretty soon I wouldn't realize how much I was drinking. Just I just do it for the heck of it. I just do it for kicks, too. How about you? Do you do it for kicks? Yeah, that's about How old are you, by the way? 14. 14. And you drink for kicks? Well, I don't always drink. I mean, you know, socially, not really. Hard [Music] drink in everything you do and everything you doct on you. The effect of alcohol is tough to measure, especially if you're half in the bag, sitting behind the wheel, and feeling like evil conne. [Music] We enlisted four volunteers to perform a simple test. Open a standard ordinary high school locker while at the same time counting backwards from 100. First sober, then under the influence. Yeah, I went 80. We had them count backwards to make it a test more like driving where you have to do two or more things at once. This isn't a race. After some practice, our volunteers got the hang of it and they were ready for their first official sober runs. And you mark, get set, go. Our leadoff man, Doug, opened his first locker in only 9 seconds. Our volunteers were a little faster than we expected, but in a few minutes, we'll see how they do after consuming a few ounces of booze. Thank you. Thank you. We think that advertising for beer, liquor, and wine has gone the limit and then some. To show what we mean, we've invited an expert in alcohol education from the San Francisco Bay area, Kent Little. Okay, group. We're going to see what happens when you sit on drink for an evening or afternoon. First of all, let's put you in the hospital and take your heart out. Let's give you an anesthetic and put you to sleep and see what happens. Okay, two surgeons are going to operate on you. They put a little mask on your face and they say, "Breathe this ether gasoline or ether gas." You say, "Oh, okay." You go, you start to breathe it. The very first thing that happens, you start to relax. What happens then? Your emotions come out. Your feelings come out and you jabber like an idiot on the operating table. That's right. Half of your brain's already gone. You talk about things you'd never talk about outside. That's right. Then you get a The next stage you go through is you lose your muscle skills. Most of your body is made up of muscles. If they told you to raise your right hand, you might kick your left leg. If they stood you up, you'd fall over. Okay? No muscle skills. This is when you start mumbling like an idiot. Wait a minute. If we took that gas called ether, we flipped in some water, regular old tap water, and we mixed it all up. We have to change the name. We can't call it ether anymore. Now we call it ethyl. We can't call it ether gas. Now we call it ethanol. That's what's a sale right across the street, the liquor store. Beer, wine, and liquor. The alcohol in it is the same stuff they use in the hospitals. With their official sober runs out of the way, our volunteers were poured carefully measured cocktails. Good luck here, too. We gave Doug a total of 6 ounces to drink. Tony had five, and Louise and Susan had three ounces each. Even after their first drinks, we noticed some changes in our volunteers. What? Radar little fashion about you two over here. Your emotions come out. You ever noticed we jabber her like an idiot? Uhhuh. How many of you girls have listened to a good snow job from your boyfriend after he's had a couple beers? That's all right. We guys have heard a lot of snow jobs, too. Then you get light high. The most dangerous people right here, Volkswagen drivers. You put the person behind the wheel of a Volkswagen, give them a six-ack of beer, and they'll swear to God they're driving a brand new Corvette. Zoom. By the way, I'd like to get rid of one theory right this second. High school, junior high students have this theory that when you become light high that two very magic things happen. Number one is you turn super sexy. And number two, sex is better. Think about it. A couple more drinks and you lose all your muscle skills. How can sex be any better? Now, what I'd like you to do is after I attach this mouthpiece, Deputy Dan Nathan of the Sheriff's Department gave our volunteers a breathalyzer test to determine their blood alcohol count. And you'll hear a whistle start sounding. The police use this machine to measure how much alcohol is in the bloodstream. A10, that is a tenth of 1 percentage point, is the amount allowed for driving in most states. Okay, that's fine. of our volunteers, Louise registered the highest, a 0.05, which is only half the legal maximum. So, you ready? I'm ready. Here we go. 175. Okay, go. Here's Louise on her official under the influence run. 97 Oh, rats. 96 95 94. Now, it takes her twice as long to open the lockers. Uh 90 89 8 I can't count. But what are you told by the liquor industry? Let's see real quickly. Open up magazines, Playboy, Play Girl, Newsweek, Time, whatever you read. And what do you see? Beautiful promises. For an example, if you want to win friends, use our influence. Wow. Everybody wants friends. Head out, you guys. Old granddad will produce the friends for you. With 3 ounces of vodka inside her, Susan has a blood alcohol count of just below 0.05%. 05%. No, 91. Oh, I got to start over. Susan's score went from an average of 17 seconds sober to 45 seconds on her first run. 11. Oh, I forgot the I want to introduce you to my favorite girl, Miss America and her young child. Let's see what we walk around in our society looking like. What do we do? Well, we want to go to the beach, right? So, we have our little Budweiser beach towel. Well, you girls, uh, if you're healthy at all, you can have your top half of your bikini, or you can have a skirt. Uh, of course, you got to have a hat to keep the sun out of your eyes. Think about it, people. We walk around our whole life looking like a beer can, and then we wonder why it's so hard to say, "No, I don't want to drink." Ready? Ready? Go. Here's Tony. Also at a 0.04% blood alcohol count. Well below the legal limit. Now, watch how he does. This is classic. 91 90 89 Wow. Where am I supposed to be? 97 97 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 Somebody fixed this locker. 885. Of our four volunteers, only Doug was able to score as well on the lockers under the influence. As a group, our heroes scored an average time of 15 seconds sober and 25 seconds while at low blood alcohol levels. I'm I really am surprised cuz I I'm having a very hard time talking to you and yet I was only halfway to the legal limit of driving. The oddball or the weirdo in our society is not the person who gets drunk. We laugh at him. The weirdo in our society is the person who does not drink. Go to a party sometime and say no thank you. Find out what happens. There is not one thing wrong with booze. What's wrong is the way people use it. Great. Thank you. [Applause] Hey Rita, what's wrong? Um, just a few problems. Listen, I'll tell you what. I heard there's a wild party going on at Mary's house tonight. What do you say we go? There's going to be a lot of booze there. Come on. There's your line. What is this? Hey, you're going to the party tonight, aren't you? Of course. Yeah, I'm party. Yeah. You're taking some of the stuff with you, boss. What are you doing with that stuff, man? Isn't this cool, boss? Hey, ain't cool. But then what should I take to the party, boss? You take what I take, man. All right. That's right. Fun. Forget the booze. Rita, we're about to meet a man who's an expert on booze. He started drinking when he was 16 and was a chronic alcoholic by the time he was a senior in high school. In fact, he's the only student body president in the history of his school who failed to graduate with his class. He's 24 now and a recovered alcoholic. He's Scott Marshall. So, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to be an obnoxious boyfriend. Okay? Cuz I'm used to being obnoxious boyfriend. and I'm going to have a little bit of a drinking problem, but I'm not going to really think so. The hardest thing for an alcoholic is to recognize his own drinking problem. I use role playing to point out some of the games an alcoholic uses to disguise his addiction from himself. I know because I once played the same games. Scott, last night was really bad. What was bad about it? You going over in the corner and talking to other pe other girls? Oh, it was just she was just sitting there. My god, you get so panicky all the time. Why is that getting panicky every weekend? Don't yell. I have a headache. Don't yell. I wouldn't doubt it. The way you were drinking last night. What is this always coming down on my drinking all the time? I have a problem. I want to help you. I have a problem. What's the problem? That you're just drinking too much. What's too much? Just because you only have one can of beer and fall in your face. Don't you see? Every every weekend we've gone out. Took me a long time to learn how to drink that much. That's really nothing to be proud of. What do you mean? I know a lot of people that can't drink as much as I do. I'm trying to help you. Who needs help? I don't have a problem. Hey, let me break here. I want you to get in touch with is how really difficult it is when someone is so hostile like that. Number one, if I said, "Yeah, I have a problem." I would have to do something about that. And someone that loves booze is not going to say, "I have a problem." Because they'd have to stop drinking. And who wants to do that? Think of most of you here are social drinkers. Think about never drinking again, never smoking any grass, never even smoking any tobacco, okay? For the rest of your life, right? From this minute on. That's probably uncomfortable. Now, get in touch with how an alcoholic or an addict must feel when they say, "Hey, you've got a problem. Why don't you stop drinking?" They can't imagine it. It's an impossibility. What are you doing? Drink it again. What does it look like? You're an alcoholic. I ain't no alcoholic. You are. Look at that. Empty. All of them empty. I can fill them up again. I can't I can't take this. I got to get out of here. Go on. That'll just be room for my woman to move in. Right on then. Right on then. What you mean right on? You don't even know what the word mean. You so out of it. I'd rather be out of it and in the world tomorrow than be in it and out of the world tomorrow. Goodbye. When I started to question my own alcoholism, I got from my parents, Scott, you can't possibly be an alcoholic. My father is a police captain. So, did he want to see that I was alcoholic? No. Because we have a thing in the society that alcoholics are bad people, immoral, weak willed, and we go through that whole thing, which is simply not true. What happens is that one out of 10 drinkers get in trouble with booze. Cause of death. You're not going to believe this. Alcohol OD. Alcohol OD. That's the fifth one this week and it's only Tuesday. How old was this one? 26. 26? She looks 60. Well, let's perform the autopsy and confirm the report. All right. Scalpel. Scalpel. May I assist you in removing the brain? Yes, please. [Applause] She really was a boo. There must be a pint of alcohol in that brain. I wouldn't doubt it. Well, let's get on with it. Glasses. Glasses. Toothpicks and olives. Toothpicks and olives. Will you do the honors? I'd be delighted. Let's make a toast. All right. May she rest in peace. I haven't had a drink in hours. I thought I was going to die. Have you heard people brag the next day about a hangover? Okay, I'm on the telephone. Someone calls at 8:30 in the morning, get on the phone and say, "Hi." Okay, I said, "How was the party last night, Scott?" It was really far out. You know, I feel so bad today. You know, I got this hangover and they wandering through this whole thing with that, which is ridiculous because would I have gone to that party and sat down and ate 89 bags of potato chips, thrown up all over the place, come home, laid in bed, look at the ceiling with the head spinning, right? Not able to go to sleep, and wake up the next day, and the guy calls up and says, "How was the fire last night?" Really far out. I ate 89 bags of potato chips and threw up all over the place. You know, I wouldn't do that, but that's overeating. And we're against overeating, but we're not against overdrinking. People, they just do that because, you know, they friends do it or they have problems and they use that as a security blanket. Hey, Poke, come here. What? Look what I got. Here, have a drink. Oh, man. At school. Some people, they just want to do it because their friends do it cuz they want to fit in with the crowd. Come on. Who's going to know? Mr. Titer might find out. To be accepted by most crowds, you have to drink. Dead burner. Schmidter, you we everybody does it. Why did you drink? Well, um, man, are you out of it? Everybody was well, sort of hassling me. Well, okay. That's right. Boy, I hope Pat Boon doesn't find out about this. That's the kind of peer pressure. That's the belonging thing. And so, we almost have to look at our own rights, you know, and what are friends? What are friends? Is not a friend someone that will respect whatever you want to do? I'm sure that if the guy took out a syringe and a needle and started has, you know, handing out smack that you guys would go, "Wait a minute." You know, maybe some of you wouldn't, but see, you drop that and we're dealing too with alcohol that is a drug. It's an addictive substance just like heroin is. And then we will let people violate what we want to do with that. Now, I'm not against drinking. I'm against alcohol abuse. It's rough. It's really rough to get in touch with that. But the bottom line is that we have to be answerable to ourselves only. Cuz when all of them split, how are we going to feel? How are we going to feel? As unrealistic as it seems, I am not living in any dreams. For I am hooked and refused to look at what's really happening to me. I am not living in any dream. [Music] Trapped in a dong with really no home. Caught short of time with way too much wine. What's [Music] this? Who am [Music] I? Where am I going? Where am I [Music] going? My head's been spinning round and round and now the time has come to tell you just can't erase it. Feelings running through my soul. I've lost my mind and all control. Feeling getting stronger. Feeling getting stronger. Feeling getting [Music] stronger. Spirits in this evil in this body of mine. I need help now. No more alcohol. I begin to see it now. Oh, the pain of it all. This horable, lonely feeling of withdraw. [Music] [Applause] I hope this program has opened up some new ways for you to look at drinking. I'm Lawrence Hilton Jacobs for me and for the young people that youth gives a damn. Thanks for watching. When you look at yourself, do you like what you see? If you like what you see, you're the person you should be because your reflection reflects in everything you do and everything you do reflect on you. When you wake up each day, do you like how you feel? If you like how you feel, you got nothing to conceal cuz your reflection reflects reflect in everything you do and everything you do reflect on you.