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Why I Don’t Drink Or Smoke
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| By Frosty Wooldridge | |
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Every day of the year, on television advertisements, or magazines, or radio—you see exotic beach scenes where someone drinks a fancy beer with a lime slice dropped into the bottle. Two bikini-clad women sit on the beach with the ocean in the background. That beer guarantees men, beautiful women and women, handsome men. In other advertisements, you see a beautiful woman in an evening gown with a handsome man…pouring some high-priced whiskey into a glass for the evening’s festivities. Even today, famous magazines show a handsome guy smoking a cigarette in a rugged setting. He might be on a horse, or driving an SUV through mountainous terrain. The cigarette gives him an air of masculinity. Of course, the ads don’t show the consequences of such consumption habits. Drinking not only poisons every cell in your body, it damages your brain cells, i.e., dementia. Worse, according to the CDC, 100,000 people are diagnosed with seven different kinds of cancer annually, all caused by drinking, and 20,000 die—year after year after year. In the United States, roughly 11,000 to 13,000 people die in alcohol-impaired driving crashes each year. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, there were 11,904 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, accounting for about 30% of all traffic-related deaths nationwide. Key Statistics Daily Average: About 32 to 34 people die every day in the U.S. in crashes involving an impaired driver. Blood Alcohol Limit: Crashes are classified as alcohol-impaired when a driver or operator has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 g/dL or higher. High-Risk Age Groups: Drivers aged 21 to 34 account for the highest percentage of alcohol-impaired fatal crashes. What about smoking? Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 people in the United States each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this total includes roughly 41,000 deaths caused by exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the country. Key Mortality Facts Overall Toll: More than 480,000 total annual deaths. Daily Impact: About 1,300 deaths every single day. Proportion: Roughly 1 in every 5 deaths in the U.S. Secondhand Smoke: Over 41,000 deaths among non-smokers. What about drug deaths? In the United States, approximately 79,384 people died of drug overdoses in 2025, representing a sharp 24% decline from 2024. Recent provisional data from the CDC shows this downward trend continuing, with an estimated 68,641 deaths for the 12-month period ending in February 2026. Recent Overdose Totals 2022 Peak: ~110,900 deaths 2023: ~105,007 deaths 2024: 79,384 deaths 2025 (Provisional): ~70,000 deaths 2026 (12-month provisional ending in Feb): 68,641 deaths. Why I don’t drink or smoke or do drugs: When I grew up, my two uncles, Uncle George and Uncle Jack were total alcoholics. On Sundays, we hit Hogback Lake for swimming and hotdogs. In my younger years, I couldn’t figure out why my two uncles were so “crazy” with actions and speaking. By the time I was 15, I watched Uncle George beat the milk-cows in the stanchions with a 2X4 if they didn’t move fast enough for him. He beat his dog, “Poochie” with a belt. He also beat his wife, who finally fled with their daughter to her parent’s home. She never allowed him to see her daughter again for fear of her life. Uncle Jack proved to be a “happy drunk.” He laughed, told stupid drunk stories, and drove his pickup truck while drunk on his butt. He also smoked two to three packs of cigarettes daily. His wife could not go out in public with him because he was so embarrassing. What happened to both uncles? Uncle George got into a fight with another guy, and the other drunk pulled out a shotgun and blew Uncle George in half at 46 years of age. The other guy went to prison and Uncle George went six feet under. Uncle Jack, at 48, died of massive lung cancer, and cirrhosis of the liver. He left a family of three kids and his wife. How many alcoholics are there in America? Answer: 28,000,000 or about 10 percent of our entire population. How many smokers in America? Answer: about 28,000,000. How many illegal drug users in America? Answer: In America, about 73.6 million people aged 12 and older (25.5% of that population) used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs within a one-year period. This includes roughly 47.7 million people who used illicit drugs within a recent 30-day window. In other words, fellow American, we’ve got some BIG problems with alcohol, smoking and drugs in our country. Our laws are not strong enough to stop drinking and driving. There is no way to stop people from smoking. Apparently, no one really wants to stop illegal drugs from being distributed throughout our society. Which means we will continue to waste billions even trillions of dollars on drug addicts, 780,000 homeless, millions of illiterate kids who lack any interest in education, 1.3 million teen suicide attempts annually, shoplifting, and the list grows. How can we save ourselves? We need to pass laws that make it horrendously consequential to drink and drive. Because what’s happening today in highway deaths will continue as it has for decades. When you receive your driver’s license, you must watch a video showing car crashes and drunk drivers. You must sign a paper that if you drink and drive, you go to jail for one to three years, pay $50,000.00 fine, your car is impounded and you pay the impound fees, and you cannot drive unless you pay $20,000.00 annually for car insurance. If you break any of the rules, you return to jail. Definite harsh consequences would bring definite positive results. It would save all those 13,000 people from death, and the suffering of family members. As to smoking, how do you educate stupid people, or emotionally addictive people? It probably isn’t possible. They’ll just have to be part of the 480,000 who die annually. As to illegal drugs, we need laws that harshly imprison distributors of illegal drugs. You can’t fine them, but you can put them into prison for 10, 20, 30 years. In the end, I thank my Uncle George and Uncle Jack teaching me harsh lessons for being complete drunks and smokers…because I didn’t want to become like them. Oh, and I saved tens of thousands of dollars, which I used to travel around the world, and live a life of adventure, and enjoy a healthy body, mind and spirit.
##  -- Frosty Wooldridge Golden, CO Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences Facebook: Frosty Wooldridge Facebook Adventure Page: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com Www.frostywooldridge.com Six continent world bicycle traveler Speaker/writer/adventurer Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Astoria, Oregon to Bar Harbor, Maine, 4,100 miles, 13 states, Canada, summer 2017, 100,000 feet of climbing: |