The Best Christmas Gift for Kids is Alcohol Free Parents

Best Christmas Gift for Kids is Alcohol Free Parents

We look forward to the happiness Christmas brings, but not every home will be happy this year. This time of "good cheer" is often spoiled by a glass of "good cheer." An alcoholic drink, consumed by a loved one, is often the reason for misery, not joy.

When I was a speaker for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I spoke to an elementary class in Escondido California. After I spoke to the class, I received the following letter from a 9-year-old girl named Teresa Perez.

Dear Mrs. Fry
Thank you for volunteering to come to our class. You have really helped me understand that drinking is very bad and it makes you do really bad things and I would never like to die and leave my family. I really did like my dad, but one day my dad went to get a hair cut at my uncle's house and he was walking back home because we were going to get ice cream and when he was coming back a drunk driver ran him over and he died and now I don't have a dad and I really do miss him. I wish he did not die.
Your friend,
Teresa Perez
At the end of her letter she drew a picture of a car and a man lying on the ground.

The letter touched me deeply. I felt the hurt in this little girl's life. I wondered how many more dear children, like Teresa, will lose a parent or loved one because someone decided to drink alcohol, and didn't think of the consequences? How many more will have their lives shattered?

It is time we woke up to how our drinking habits affect others. If we're not a part of the solution we are a part of the problem. Your social drink could be the reason your child becomes an alcoholic or a drunk driver. You could become the alcoholic or drunk driver! It's not cool to drink alcohol!

Forty years ago smoking was considered cool, too. I remember watching James Dean with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, in the movie, Rebel Without a Cause. We teenagers thought smoking was cool and so most of us chose to smoke, just like many of our young people are doing today. What has been the result? Thousands lost their lives to the cool habit. Many more are still smoking with horrific lives, because of what tobacco has done to their bodies, and to their freedom

Cool? I don't think so!

Are we going to let alcohol have the same disastrous affect on our young people that smoking cigarettes did to the young people of long ago?

It's time we had a stop drinking campaign! Its time, we as adults took on the responsibility of being responsible and choose not to drink at all, for the sake of our children.

I especially appeal to you mothers. You have the most influence on you family.

This year lets give our kids a smart and wonderful Christmas gift, "the gift of alcohol-free parents!"

I don't want any more letters from children like Teresa.