How to sell sobriety

Selling sobriety is, on many levels, a marketing issue.

The product, sobriety, has many virtues, among them longer life, better jobs, happier families, saving money, the opportunity to help others and a growing reliance on God.

Sobriety, I have found, is even addictive.

So who are we going to hire to sell sobriety?

I nominate President Donald Trump.

“President Trump is the most successful real time communicator in history,” according to author David Scott, who is no slouch when it comes to marketing and communications.

In the introduction to his book, the New Rules of Marketing and PR, Scott says, “Rather than rely on the marketing and public relations techniques that had worked in the past, Trump embraced the new rules.

“He spoke directly to his audience via Twitter, and he used real time content to get the media to pay attention to him, generating more than $5 billion in free exposure for his candidacy.”

As a former reporter, editor, publisher and media-training specialist, with nearly 40 years of recovery from alcohol abuse, I agree with the President’s up-to-date approach.

Say what you will about Trump’s Tweets, outrageous as they can be at times, they are picked up by the media, whose public scoldings encourage widespread debate and help the President get his messages out at very low cost.

Abstinence

At a time when the nation is struggling with an opioid crisis, and other forms of drug abuse Trump is an especially effective spokesman for sobriety and sober living. Influenced, at least in part by the death of his brother, Fred, at an early age, from alcoholism. Trump neither drinks nor uses drugs.

“Fred was a great guy, a handsome person,” Trump said in an interview several years ago. “He was the life of the party. He was a fantastic guy, but he got stuck on alcohol. And it had a profound impact, and ultimately he became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. He understood the problem that he had and that it was a very hard problem.”

Trump has shared his views on alcohol abuse for many years. In 1999 when he was first considering running for President, he had an interview with Larry King on CNN and said, “Why is it that everybody is suing the tobacco companies and nobody sues the alcohol companies? I mean, you have the car crashes and the kids who get killed by some drunk.”

With regard to the death of his brother, Trump told People Magazine that it had a ‘profound impact’ on his life. He added that he has known many other rich and powerful men who were unable to overcome their addictions,

Trump, as reported in a recent article gave a speech at Urbandale High School in Des Moines, Iowa during their homecoming event and told them, “If you can stay away from the alcohol and stay away from the drugs, it’s a big, big barrier that you won’t have to work on.”

The President’s own abstinence makes him an ideal spokesman for the cause of sobriety and should, in our opinion, transcend his current preoccupation with building a wall. Our future depends on reducing the demand for drugs.

Demand versus Supply

Trump’s preoccupation with a wall on America’s southern border to stem the tide of drugs coming in from Mexico is, to me, of questionable value. Drug dealers can fly over it or sail around it on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans or smuggle it through Canada.

A wall, of course, does have some value, and we should continue to do what we can to interrupt the supply of drugs, but we should add emphasis to reducing the demand for drugs.

Almost a century ago, we tried shutting down the supply of alcohol with the passage of the 18^th amendment to the Constitution. It made the sale of alcohol illegal which proved to be both ineffective and costly.

In 1920, our federal government voted in the 18^th amendment to the Constitution which made the sale of alcohol illegal and repealed it in 1934 when it proved to be both ineffective and costly.

Case closed.

As if in answer to prayer, a little over a year after the end of prohibition, in 1935, two men, Dr. Bob Smith and stockbroker Bill Smith founded Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio. AA focused on reducing the demand for alcohol with a program of attraction. And now almost 100 years later, AA continues to have a huge positive influence on reducing alcohol consumption and changing lives for the better.

In his best selling book, “the Road Less Traveled,”  Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Peck, set the stage for what was coming with his first words, “Life is difficult.”

Peck’s book hit the book stores in 1980, which coincided with my first year of sobriety in 1980.

 

Praise for Alcoholics Anonymous

Dr. Peck, who died in 2005, praised AA as one of the two most significant events of the 20^th century. The other was World War II.

He also emphasized in the pages that followed that “it is only through taking responsibility and accepting the fact that life has problems that these problems can be solved.

“The basic set of tools for living our lives,” he continued, “include delaying gratification, assuming responsibility, being dedicated to the truth and balancing our lives.”

Dr. Peck, at age 42, became a Christian in 1980. He also wrote more books, and died of pancreatic cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

It should be obvious to all that dealing with our nation’s drug problem should begin, like AA, at the grass roots, in our individual communities and neighborhoods.

We have recommended on our web site that Little Rock organizations form a local community “Roundtable” to address addictions. It is outlined on our website.

Dr. Peck has defined what he considers to be the most salient characteristics of a community organization membership addressing local problems. These are outlined below,

 

• Inclusivity, commitment and consensus: Members accept and embrace each other, celebrating their individuality and transcending their differences. They commit themselves to the effort and the people involved. They make decisions and reconcile their differences through consensus.
• Realism: Members bring together multiple perspectives to better understand the whole context of the situation. Decisions are more well rounded and humble, rather than one-sided and arrogant.
• Contemplation: Members examine themselves. They are individually and collectively self-aware of the world outside themselves, the world inside themselves, and the relationship between the two.
• A safe place: Members allow others to share their vulnerability, heal themselves, and express who they truly are.
• A laboratory for personal disarmament: Members experientially discover the rules for peacemaking and embrace its virtues. They feel and express compassion and respect for each other as fellow human beings.
• A group that can fight gracefully: Members resolve conflicts with wisdom and grace. They listen and understand, respect each other’s gifts, accept each other’s limitations, celebrate their differences, bind each other’s wounds, and commit to a struggle together rather than against each other.
• A group of all leaders: Members harness the “flow of leadership” to make decisions and set a course of action. It is the spirit of community itself that leads, and not any single individual.
• A spirit: The true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. Members may view the source of this spirit as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

 

Alcoholics Anonymous has produced thousands of pithy sayings about living life to the fullest over the past 83 years, and here are five that should be on everyone’s lists:

• Living one day at a time is not a suggested minimum…it is the suggested maximum.

 

• For people like us, there is no such thing as a legitimate resentment.

 

• We’re responsible for what is possible, and God is responsible for what is impossible.

 

• The best way to learn how to pray is to pray.

 

 

• What we really want is some comfort in our lives. The most comfort we can find is by helping other people.