“We are a society of ‘If one piece of cake is good, two are better.’” A judge in Kenosha County (Wisconsin) made this statement to me…and she’s absolutely correct. We know that we shouldn’t actually eat two pieces of cake in one sitting, but we want to, and society says that’s better. Just like everything else.
But what if we all got the message that moderation really is best? What if getting smashed on our 21st birthdays wasn’t an acceptable rite of passage? What if we were provided messages from birth that playing on devices is fun…for a while…and so is playing outside, reading, talking with friends? What if the expectation was that, when we do things we know aren’t good for us…or even those we know are but can be overdone…we do them in moderation?
And what if we held people to that standard on a regular basis?
That is, what if our employers actually expected us at our best at work and made sure we were trying? Employers do health screenings for those on employer-sponsored insurance, but what if testing for alcohol and other drugs was a regular part of screening? We get tested to see if our cholesterol is at a healthy level. We get tested to see if our blood pressure is at a healthy level. What if we regularly got tested to see if the mind-altering drugs we use are at a healthy level? And what if those tests included the mind-altering drug that’s most used, alcohol?
We don’t have to have heart disease to have high cholesterol.
We don’t have to have be obese to know we need to lose a few pounds.
We don’t have to have skin cancer to know we should use sunscreen.
We don’t have to have addiction to know we use substances too much or too often.
What if THAT message were normalized?
How much healthier would we be, and how much could we reduce stigma by acknowledging that moderation is best? I think it’s worth a try!
Guided by Guida 
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