THE CHOICE IS YOURS

[Music] on sis let's go I'm ready Jerry Louise where are you children running to now next store mom and we're not children mother not to Mr Wilson's again sure what's wrong with that nothing wrong except well AR aren't you taking up a lot of his time he has his lectures to prepare for his chemistry class you know well that's just it he tries them out on us on you but Mr Wilson teaches the senior class he says he wants to try them out on us so stand them seniors find out about that what I mean Mr Wilson is so much older he has to be careful not at least that's what what he said so much older sure Mom he's old must be all of 27 oh dear I had no idea Mr Wilson was so ancient poor man well you better run over there before he gets any older and don't stay long I told your meet the 540 from the city okay mom okay Mom and Jerry Please don't slam the door come on in door's open hi Jerry hi Louise hi Mr say what are you doing with all those bottles something wrong Jerry well I don't know all that stuff you're going to take a drink Mr Wilson now what do you know about all this stuff as you call it well who doesn't oh you you have to do is look around at all the building magazines look at TV or listen to the radio anyone who could read knows about whiskey wine or beer after all we're not children well certainly you wouldn't object if I took a little drink well I don't know I didn't think you'd drink you're a professor then you think liquor is bad I don't know Mr Wilson what do you think Louise oh I don't know whether it's right or wrong we just didn't think you'd take that that stff as my dear brother would say see why don't you two take off your jackets and stay a while this is quite an interesting discussion well I don't think we better mother's afraid we're bothering you nonsense I especially want to talk with you about my new lecture okay but what about those bottles that's part of my lecture well I don't you too worry I'm not going to take a drink never have in fact I don't understand what's whiskey got to do with your chemistry class oh it's very simple you see each year I give a series of talks on alcohol and it's effect on the body and mind these bottles are merely props that I'll use to demonstrate my points along with drawings and charts oh that's different when you say alcohol I guess you mean alcohol in those bottles it's exactly right these beverages are called alcoholic beverages because they contain alcohol the liquid I have in this Beaker c2h5oh oh sure we even studied about that in our chemistry class but I didn't think about it as something you drink I wish you'd tell tell me what you and Jerry know about what's in these bottles you want us to tell you yes it would help me a lot in pring my notes I don't know much Mr Wilson just what all the kids know boys Jerry not kids as I said before every place you look you see pictures of bottles all different kinds and shapes sorts of fancy names not really every place Mom and Dad don't drink and I suppose lots of my classmates folks don't drink either I guess it's pretty expensive and it seems to make people act different funny you know yes I do know you've really kept your eyes open but how do you know it's expensive are you kidding Mr Wilson I pass a couple liquor stores on the way to school sometimes I stop and look at the bottles read the prices $3 $4 $5 and even some for six and8 I just think of all the good things you could buy with that money money good things then you think liquor is bad you sure ask a lot of tough questions if it's bad why do so many people drink then if it's good why does it make people do such queer things what queer things you know that pool room and Tavern down at the corner of man and Vine yes sometimes after school when the gang and I walk by we can hear swearing and fighting lot of the time we see men staggering out into the street once we even saw a woman stumble out of that place and sit right down on the sidewalk all blurry ey and messy it made me feel funny inside I wondered if she was someone's mother we don't walk by The Tavern anymore we walk home a different way now Jerry you're helping me to see so much more clearly the importance of my lecture about a month ago where the slums are dad was looking at a piece of property where they're going to build a big new housing project for the poor he's an architect you know and a very good one we drove down Main that street was so many bars and cheap hotels and Loan shops scared Ro that's what Dad called it among a lot of other things it it certainly made him angry but he said we should see it there were men standing all along the street next to the taverns on the street corners in the alleys passing bottles around lots of fellas some quite young and and some real old men sitting on the curb with their feet in the gutter while we even saw saw the police pick one man up and put him in a patrol wagon and and there were small children around too playing in the streets and and all that filth it it made me almost sick to my stomach and so if alcohol could make so many people live in such a terrible way that I know it can't be good but then there are people who drink who don't live on Skid Row or in the slums that's the part that's hard to understand the magazine Edge you always see some fancy dressed guy sitting in a leather chair looking very pleased with himself holding a big drink in his hand he's always welld dressed seems to live in a big house as a movie director or an author or a painter or some kind of big shot a man a man of Distinction distinction that's it I suppose what it is true but I just can't see how some people look so prosperous and some look so bad well you can't expect the advertising companies to show some poor fellow lying in the gutter to advertise their product no one would buy oh we know that but now that you've got us started on this there are a lot of questions I'd like to ask but I don't know how to suppose I show you some of the things I've gotten together to show and tell my class and that way I may answer some of the things that you find difficult to put to me as questions that would be swell fine Jerry not swell must you be so vulgar well first of all look at this Beaker it contains alcohol the same liquid that's found in these three drinks the beer the wine the whiskey now of course the more alcohol you take into your system the more pronounced the effect will be here smell it phw that's awful it burns in more ways than one watch you see it burns quite readily in fact alcohol is used in jet planes rocket ships and Torpedoes but I'd like to show you what happens when you take an alcoholic drink I want you to watch this animated film very carefully here we see Bill Smith taking a drink the alcohol travels down the esophagus to the stomach and the small intestine it is absorbed directly without Digest es through the walls of the stomach capillaries on the stomach absorb the alcohol and carry to the portal vein which carries the alcohol to the liver some of the alcohol has passed into the small intestine here capillaries absorb the alcohol and via the portal vein it is carried to the liver you follow me sure those capillaries in that portal vein look like canals or roads sort like a transportation system that's exactly it our blood circulation is the transportation system of our bodies the average adult has six quarts of blood and this blood is pumped by the heart at the rate of 5 to 12 gallons a minute when a person is working and listen to this the time required for a single drop of blood to travel from the heart to the head or to the feet and back again to the heart is about 20 seconds now since alcohol is absorbed rapidly it is present in the bloodstream within a minute or two after swallowing in the liver the alcohol is burned or oxidized but not all the alcohol is burned at once so that portion not acted upon immediately by the liver passes through the veins to the heart the greater the amount of Al alcohol that reaches the liver at one time the greater the amount of alcohol that reaches the heart so if Bill Smith takes several drinks in a short time a good percentage of the ethyl alcohol in the drinks will be transported to the bloodstream and so to the heart this alcohol is pumped by the heart to all parts of the body through the arteries the liver is the one organ in the body where the oxidation of alcohol takes place small amounts of alcohol Escape through the lungs and kidneys but the greater portion that remains in the bloodstream remains unchanged until acted upon by the liver then that part of the that isn't D oxidized keeps traveling around the body and back to the liver until it is burned up right then the more you drink the more alcohol or is in the bloodstream very good the average adult can burn about 1/3 of an ounce of alcohol per hour and that's less than a tablespoon so the more Bill Smith drinks the more alcohol will pass through his body as you have pointed out Jerry now this is important as long as there is alcohol in the bloodstream some of it will reach the brain and that's what makes people stagger and that funny yes in the brain the alcohol acts as an anesthetic the Judgment can be dulled and a false feeling of relaxation occurs when there is less than 1 ounce of alcohol in the entire bloodstream so as Bill Smith continues to drink the concentration of alcohol in the brain increases and Those portions of the brain which control the vocal cords vision and muscular reaction are affected [Applause] bill doesn't Heed These danger signs and as he continues to drink he becomes so befuddled he doesn't seem to care what happens when the concentration of alcohol in his bloodstream reaches 4/10 of 1% he loses Consciousness you think that Bill Smith would know what would happen if he drank too much he probably thought that when he took his first drink it would be the only one but alcohol as I have pointed out causes one to throw caution to the wind and remember even when Bill regains Consciousness and manages to stumble home it'll be 8 hours or so until he's sober and it'll undoubtedly have a hangover when he awakens in the morning that is he'll have a headache a desire for great quantities of water a bad taste in his mouth and he'll probably want to be left alone until his nerves quiet down and his wife and children will suffer because his temper will be short and when he gets to the office his boss will lose out too because Bill Smith won't be able to work efficiently and don't forget drinking is expensive the dollars bill spent for his spree is a large portion of his weekly paycheck now I suppose a lot of people spend much more each week than Bill did or something that just makes them feel badly in the long run yes the cost of drinking is great in more ways than one there are about 55 million occasional drinkers in the United States today and about 17 million regular Drinkers and listen to Dr Andrew C Ivy who is vice president of the University of Illinois in charge of the professional schools conservatively there are at least 4 million people in our country who have harmed themselves socially economically spiritually and perhaps bodily by drinking alcoholic beverages with so many millions who do drink there can't be many who don't no but there are above the age of 15 years there are at least 38 million total abstainers or people who do not drink that's a lot and the number is growing as the facts about alcohol are becoming more widely known you can drink when you're a man if you want to but before you decide think carefully if it's worth the great price you'll have to pay you've got me sold as dad would say well here's another startling piece of information the national Safety Council has published the appalling fact that from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day there were three quarters as many persons killed and injured by traffic accidents due to alcohol drinking as were killed injured and missing in our Armed Forces 1949 there are approximately twice as many persons killed and injured by traffic accidents due to drunken driving as were killed and wounded annually on the average in World War II how many would that be just about a quar million persons it it just doesn't make sense may I ask you a question Mr Wilson certainly maybe it's a silly question but is it just as bad to drink wine or beer as it is whiskey isn't whiskey a whole lot stronger and more dangerous well drink for drink they're each about the same strength are demonstrate what I mean with these bottles and test tubes now the active agent alcohol in beer wine whiskey and related beverages is identical the common name for this beverage alcohol is grain alcohol the chemist calls it ethyl alcohol now let's look at three different average sized alcoholic drinks now here is a glass containing 12 oz or one bottle of 4 and 1/2% beer the test tube will show that the amount of ethyl alcohol contained in that one glass of beer is .54 Oz now here's a 3 o glass of porn wine which is 20% alcohol by volume the amount of ethyl alcohol contained in that 1 3 oz glass of wine is 60 oz now this is a whiskey high ball an 8 oz glass containing a mixture of soda water some sometimes ice and 1 oz of bonded whiskey now in this 1 oz of bonded whiskey there is half an ounce of ethyl alcohol now let's look at the three test tubes containing the amount of ethyl alcohol found in these beverages we quickly see that the amounts are about the same except that there is a little more alcohol in the glass of wine and a glass of beer then in the whiskey High balll made with 1 oz of bonded whiskey now it's true that the alcoholic content of beer wine and whiskey may vary slightly but the amount of ethyl alcohol found on the average size drink of each of these beverages is about the same and this is very important to remember many people who drink beer and wine think they're getting less alcohol for drink than in a whiskey high ball but keep in mind that drink for drink they are each about of the same strength and that one bottle of beer was introduce into the body as much ethyl alcohol as a whiskey highball made with 1 oz of bonded whiskey I I never thought of it that way you certainly made it clear and I'm sure our class would get just as much out of your lecture as the seniors well that's what I'm hoping for this is such an important thing that I want as many classes as possible to hear these facts oh and uh speaking of facts and figures on drinking and alcoholism here are a few more would you like to hear them sure the average expense for each family using alcoholic beverages averages $500 per year now some families spend a good deal more than others people who frequent expensive bars can easily spend $1,000 a more a year there has been estimated that alcoholism cost the nation's industry 1 billion each year that's 1,000 million isn't it yes 1,000 million here's another startling figure J Edgar Hoover director of the FBI says that the annual cost of all kinds of crime in the United States is $15 billion the smallest estimate of the cost of crime attributed to drinking has been 16% or $2 b400 million a fell just doesn't take time to think these things out you're certainly right Jerry I'd like you to hear what Dr Ivy told me a few weeks ago he was sitting right in that chair every young person should know first that at present no human being can be regarded as immune to addiction to alcohol we cannot predetermine who is susceptible and who is resistant to becoming an alcoholic alcohol addicts come from the educated and ignorant the rich and in the poor the clergy and church members as well as from among the criminal class in the second place young people should know that one out of 15 social drinkers reaches the stage where he is repeatedly in trouble because of alcohol that is the risk one in 15 the social Drinker takes in the third place young people should know that the really dangerous driver is the one who has only had two or three drinks and still thinks he is in possession of his faculties but whose driving judgment and skill have been decidedly impaired in the fourth place young people should know that the consumption of alcoholic beverages increases promiscuity disease divorce Vice crime poverty and mortality from many diseases moreover they should know why alcohol consumption does these things that it does these things primarily because of its effect on the brain in the fifth place and finally young people should know that the only cure known for alcoholism is total abstinence regarding abstinence there is only one question to ask what is the only known and scientific way never to become a drunken driver or a victim of acute and chronic alcoholism here we have an absolute and unchallengeable answer young people should know and can easily understand that abstinence is the only known easy and scientific way the only way that works for everyone to prevent acute and chronic alcoholism and is at present the only known way to cure alcohol addiction well there you have the facts Dr Ivy and you have certainly given us a lot to think about oh it's it's getting late we' better go now thanks a lot Mr Wilson you're sure welcome I hope you'll be able to tell our entire class what you've told us say Jerry here's some new stamps for your collection thanks a Al long Jerry Louise drop in anytime come on Mr W I thank God that there are millions of youngsters who know how to think and act intelligently we can be sure of our country's future when it rests in the hands of young people like Jerry and Louise and you remember the choice is yours [Music]