U.S Booze Drink – Brain Shrink (published in the Archives of Neurology.)

U.S. researchers have found a significant relationship between alcohol consumption and brain shrinkage. The study was based on an analysis of drinking habits and brain volume in about 2,000 U.S. adults. MRI scans showed that drinkers brains shrunk much more than non-drinkers. Even previous sippers’ was affected and women’s “grey matter” experienced the most weight-less effects...This study suggests that, unlike the associations with cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption does not have any protective effect on brain volume.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,437664,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/10/14/healthmag.alcohol.brain.shrinkage/

Harmful Consequences of Alcohol Use on the Brain.

Comprehensive research on how alcohol affects the brains of youth reveals just how harmful drinking is to the developing brain. The average age of a child's first drink is now 12. Nearly 20 percent of 12 to 20 year-olds are considered binge drinkers. Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20. Damage from alcohol at this time can be long-term and irreversible. Adolescents need only drink half as much to suffer the same negative effects as adults. Alcohol affects the sleep cycle, resulting in impaired learning and memory as well as disrupted release of hormones necessary for growth and maturation. Those who binge once a week or increase their drinking from age 18 to 24 may have problems attaining marriage, educational attainment, employment, and financial independence. A major source of the normalization of alcohol use by children and youth is alcohol advertising. With these new findings the AMA calls on TV networks to pledge not to run alcohol ads targeted at underage youth.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/print/9416.html

Escape from a life of Misery

My parents separated when I was about 7 or 8 years of age.
Alcohol and Cigarettes were commonly used in our family and sometimes even marijuana /grass.

We traveled around a lot and as a result I attended about
10 different schools, but let me start at the beginning....

My sister and I lived with my mother and father until I was about 8 or 9 years old. Alcohol and cigarettes was a serious problem, and my parents were constantly arguing and fighting.

One day when I was at school, the fighting got really bad. When I got home a social worker was waiting to take
us to a place of safety.
Some time later my sister and I were taken to a family where we would stay for a year.
After I had caused a lot of trouble, the family decided to put us in an orphanage.


We stayed for five years in two different orphanages, where we were forced to go to church, but after church the grown-ups would drink their Alcohol and continue with life as if church
had no affect on them. As a result I thought church was a waist of time.

At the end of Grade7, my sister and I were sent home for good.
I couldn't make friends. Nobody wanted to befriend me. I started to 'bunk' school, I hated school. I skipped school very often. Somehow I managed to pass Grade 8.

I started drinking alcohol, after school, at the age of 15.

Later I left school completely and started to live my own life, doing just what I wanted to. I made a lot of bad friends.
Together we visited disco's and bar's where we would drink ourselves into a stupor.
Later on it wasn't just a weekend adventure, but something we wanted to do as often as possible.

I took on to sniffing/huffing petrol, glue, thinners, etc. and it became my life... I even started drinking bottles of cough syrup.

At one stage I went to stay with my sister and her boyfriend. Almost daily we would take a case of beer, and time and time again we would finish it off.

Later I walked away from there with a suitcase, a rucksack and a bag
full of electrical equipment and a 9mm pistol. I left the electrical equipment and the gun at a friends house with plans to sell it later.

This friend convinced me to smoke for the first time - marijuana /grass on top of it all. My friends father saw the electrical appliances and called in the police. Now the police were on my track. I fled to look for work, without success.

Disappointed with life and with myself I watched as people drove past me in smart cars, people living in nice houses, who knew the good side of life. I realized that I had nothing and that my life was a mess. There was no hope for me. I was desperate for a change in my life

There had to be something better.

I asked my Creator to show Himself to me, so that I could serve Him, I realised that I needed the real and living God in my life, and told Him that I would serve Him if He would show Himself to me.
I didn't want to waste any time serving just any god, I wanted to serve my Maker.

The following day while hitch-hiking, I met another hitchhiker who told me about a Mission
Station where we could go to rest before we went to to look for work. (My prayer of the previous day was long forgotten.)

At the mission we were told that we could only stay for about 4 days. In one of the evening devotions the Lord revealed to me my sins and showed me that I was lost.

I confessed my sins to God, in the presence of a Christian brother, and brought the story about the pistol to light. Also that I intended to correct my actions.

I started working on the Mission. After 3 months I heard that somebody had phoned for me, and I knew that it was the police.
I stood at a cross-road: to flee and be - humanly speaking - free, or to stay and give it all over to the Lord.

I stayed.

A few days later, 2 Inspectors turned up at my workplace. They took me to a prison in a nearby town, where they wanted to hold me for 3 weeks until the court case. I doubt that I was there for 5 hours - somebody had paid my bail.
Somebody accompanied me to my sister's boyfriend, and he agreed to
drop the case if he could get the electrical equipment back, or equivalent of money...
and the gun.

Amazingly we found that the gun was at a Police Station, locked in a safe.
I didn't have any money, but somebody paid it for me without asking for anything in return.
The court case was closed. I went back to the mission and am still living for Him.

I am currently married and have 3 healthy children. To God be all the glory.