EPISODE 128 OFFICIAL SCRIPT:
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY JAE ANDRES
Alright Welcome back to Getting Sober...Again
Youtube's friendliest community for NO JUDGEMENT SOBRIETY
My name is Jae and Today we are going to talk about Blackout Wednesday
And Dealing with holiday Temptations!
POP QUIZ!!
What’s the biggest NIGHT of drinking in U.S.?
is it….
New years eve
St.Patty’s day
4th of July
Or
Thanksgiving Eve aka Blackout wednesday
The answer IS
Blackout wednesday
Which is TODAY
Technically tonight.
The night before Thanksgiving,
known as “drinksgiving” or ‘blackout wednesday”
Is a night when most people in the united states
Don’t work on the following day….. which is Thanksgiving thursday.
And Can enjoy the luxury of a 4 day weekend to…..recover.
A weekend full of family, food, friends, food, fun, food and football**…
has become the first drinking weekend of the holiday season
And unfortunately, a weekend Normalizing hazardous drinking.
We tend to show gratitude for all of our life’s abundances,
Overindulge and binging on anything and everything
that's put in front of our faces **
In a recent poll from out Livestream and Live Chat
Every Friday and Sunday at 7pm Eastern,
We found out that 55% of our audience reported
Drinking so much the night before PAST thanksgivings
That they didn’t even want to participate
In thanksgiving itself.
70% of viewers reported that they felt guilty about
Potentially missing quality time with their family
Because THEY knew…
that THEY were going to be hungover.
And those who reported drinking in years past,
A whopping 80% said that they typically consumed 5 or more drinks on holidays
Students coming home from college, know too that
this is going to be one of the last opportunities
To Party hard
before it’s time buckle down and cram
for their upcoming finals week.
#blackoutwednesday has become a recent trending hashtag,
On popular social media platforms like twitter and Instagram.
A modern day rally cry,
for younger generations to coordinate the details
Of the who, what, when, where with a well understood WHY
to congregate
and over consume large amounts of alcohol,
and promoting unhealthy and even dangerous levels of binge drinking.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States notes that
a quarter of the $49-billion-a-year distilled spirits industry’s profits
come from the month between Thanksgiving and THE New Year.
Thats over 12 BILLION dollars in liquor sales,
Not beer and wine….JUST LIQUOR sales…. over then next 5 weeks.
In 2019 the restaurant management platform Upserve
Reported a 173% increase in the sale of shots of liquor
Compared to the year before…
In some suburbs of Chicago,
Blackout Wednesday can be a more popular party night
than even New Year's Eve or Saint Patrick's Day.
In some cities, its the worst drunk driving night of the year.
And Mothers Against Drunk Driving report that the Thanksgiving holiday is far deadlier than Christmas.
And with the pandemic and lockdowns affecting most bars, restaurants and nightclubs in 2020,
This year, alcohol sales are expected to skyrocket
since most states have eased covid restrictions,
Leaving the opportunity for people to return to “normal” activities.
And as we know when the pendulum swings one way,
it’s bound to swing the opposite.
When people are forced to give up their freedoms,
They will go seemingly out of their way to express them once the opportunity strikes.
And regardless of what your beliefs are on covid,
Just going by statistics alone,
In my state of Ohio
84% of the covid related deaths
Have been people ages 60 or older.
And with the recent spike of covid cases
Being reported around the country,
Combined THAT with
people recklessly going out to crowded bars
the night before thanksgiving...
Then going to see all their family members ON thanksgiving...
This could be a very dangerous time of year for people young OR old.
THIS year, is expected to be a record year for travelling.
Nearly 50 million people travel during the thanksgiving holiday in the US alone.
The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes to society
is over $132 billion dollars.
Police departments around the united states have also ramped up their DUI checkpoints over the last few years.
Research shows that for every DOLLAR invested in checkpoints,
communities save between $6 and $23 dollars
in costs from alcohol-related crashes.
We know that nearly 40% of our viewers didn’t get to see their family at all last year…
So whatever you do this year this year,
Please be safe,
and remember to make better decisions instead of worse decisions.
Spend a little more time focusing on the road,
On the traffic signals,
The cars around you.
Because we all know that with modern technology,
Combined with drugs and alcohol,
The roads can be a very scary place.
Regardless of your previous holiday traditions,
like having a glass of wine with aunt sally,
Cracking open a cold one with dad,
Having A glass of scotch with uncle bill and grandpa ted,
Know that,
you may be the only person this year who’s going to be a good influence on your family.
17% of our viewers reported that they still haven’t told THEIR family that they chose to be sober.
And over 60% of people report that they have at least 1 family member that desperately needs to get sober.
And 52% of YOU said that YOU don’t have a support system for your own sobriety
You could be the inspiration they’re looking for this holiday.
Be the Change that you want to see in the world.
Sobriety is BIGGER than you,
And remember, your successes far outweigh your struggles.
When I started this channel 3 years ago,
I didn’t have a support system.
My partner at the time wasn’t sober.
My parents weren’t sober
My cat wasn’t even sober **
But my mission became to BE the inspiration that I didn’t have,
And eventually, I KNEW that I’d be surrounded by amazing people
JUST LIKE YOU
So that I didn’t have to be so scared and unsure about my OWN sobriety journey.
Remember The law of attraction suggests that positive thoughts bring positive results into a person's life, while negative thoughts bring negative outcomes.
Community is important,
just as FAMILY is important.
And with the heaviest 5 weeks of alcohol sales starting right now,
We have opportunities to set better examples for those that we care about.
We have opportunities to walk into thanksgiving with our new found pride in our sobriety
Saying that sobriety is mine and im not giving it back!
Being great representatives for the sobriety community,
and for ourselves,
and maybe for the first time, just enjoying the holidays.
Not having a drunken argument about politics.
And maybe changing someone's mind for the first time,
And undoing their adopted Normalized toxic behaviors.
I’m sure you’re already thinking about which relatives
That you’re already NOT looking forward to seeing.
And try as they may to ruffle your sober feathers,
And gaslight you into believing that toxic behaviors
Is just their insecure form of “tough love”,
You’ll KNOW better.
WHY?
BECAUSE YOU’LL BE SOBER!
THAT’S WHY!**
You may not be the oldest one in the room,
But you can be the adult.
You may have ruined the holidays year after year,
You may have made excuse after excuse about work,
Or not feeling good, or not having enough time to be able to visit,
But THIS year,
you get to SHOW your friends and SHOW your family,
that this actually may BE a new year,
and this may actually BE a new you.
The new year is just around the corner.
And on your LONG Checklist of Sobriety milestones,
Along with the first 3 days of sobriety,
First week, first month, first concert, first BIRTHDAY….and telling your friends and family that you chose sobriety, FOR YOU
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New years EVE
are 3 additional MAJOR milestones
that you get to master during this holiday season….
And speaking of the Holiday Season,
And the spirit of GIVING
we will be giving YOU an ALL DAY live chat room to hang out at
Starting on thanksgiving at 11am ET, and going until 11pm or later.
Instead of me talking all day,
We’ll have rotating information on the screen about alcohol and sobriety,
About us and our mission,
We’ll have a slideshow of our inspomemes,
thumbnails to our previous episodes and Livestreams
and a whole lot more.
Sam the moderator, Katmom and myself will be popping in periodically to say hello,
To remind you that your sober family is just a youtube away,
incase your real family is
GETTING ON YOUR fucking NERVES**
We've also recruited a handful of our trusted members to help us moderate the chat room throughout the day,
And If you haven’t yet joined as an official member of our community,
Hit the join button next to the subscribe button down below…
So you can get exclusive access to new member monday content, every monday.
Even the old ones.
And don’t forget to Leave this video a thumbs up,
And definitely,
don’t forget to leave a comment for either me,
or anyone else in our helpful community
in the comment section down below!
And with THAT, I want to wish you a HAPPY thanksgiving....
Don't forget to show gratitude and be grateful for all of your hard work, success, learning experiences and just how far you've come along your sobriety journey.
Good luck on your sobriety journey….
And I will see you IN the next video!
VISIT US ON YOUTUBE AT WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/GETTINGSOBERAGAIN
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