Alcohol & the role it played

One of my friends mother was an alcoholic. I went with her mom one day to Jackson Hole to see where my good friend and her daughter, LaNae, lived. On the way there we stopped at a bar and the rest of the drive was interesting to say the least. On our way home, again she had some drinks, and I hung onto the car door with my life, hoping to safely make it home. The road between Idaho Falls and Jackson is going over a pass, up and down, curvy, you get the point. Obviously we did make the trip safely and I will never again get in a car with someone who has been drinking. My uncle Forrest was also an alcoholic - many stories there. My aunt Maxine took up drinking too. I hated when they would come to our house and had been drinking. It was a bad feeling all around. Uncle Forrest, when he was drunk, told my grandma off. She never really got over that and he didn't recall any of it. They also drove into a house one time. I got to see the physical and emotional scars from that. The very sad part of this story is my aunt and uncle were married in the Temple and active in the church - then came along some friends who drank and so the story goes. My uncle Stan, also an alcoholic, was another nightmare for my aunt Carol. The last time he got picked up for a DUI, he was told one more time and he would be in the state penitentiary. He and aunt Carol ended up having to go to AA meetings. Thankfully he has been sober since, but the lives he messed up and the time it took for him to wake up was way too much. He put aunt Carol through hell more than once and I saw the effects of that too. Grandpa came home drunk one night and grandma locked him out of the house, so he slept on the porch. Really people, is drinking to that degree worth it? He always kept beer in the refrigerator and on holidays there was wine brought in. Did I drink? - well, with those examples, yes, I did for a time. It was a short time and I thank God it was. For my children I say....not even once, not even once.