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Reviews and Endorsements
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[ Bookshelf Review ]
- I believe the impact of alcohol abuse is one of the greatest social issues in Australian society today and something we should be standing up against as a church. As such, Uncorked! is vital reading for people who care about our individual health and the health and happiness of our society. This book will change the way you see so many of our social problems and the taken-for- grantedness of alcohol as part of our culture.
From cancer to violence, teen binge drinking to hormonal damage, family breakdown and date rape, Uncorked! has been carefully researched and is unique in bring together such a range of information about the true cost of alcohol’s damage. I commend John Ashton and Ron Laura for what they have done in this book and Signs Publishing for publishing this new updated edition.
As well as engaging and alarming reading, Uncorked! is also an important resource book and a valuable addition to any public or private library. I would love to see more of our church members reading this book and finding ways to share it—and the information it contains—in their local communities.
—Pastor Chester Stanley, president, Australian Union Conference
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[REPORT]
- -- Uncorked! connects with community concern in Echuca, Victoria, Australia --
When John McKenzie found out about the release of Uncorked!, the possibilities for the book connected with an issue he had been thinking upon as it affected his local community. "I thought I could use that book and put it out in the community," he says.
The issue had caught his attention in the course of his work as an engineer with the Campaspe Shire Council, based in Echuca, Victoria. "I was working late in my office, and I was invited to attend a video presentation on alcohol issues, put together by a group of local young people to be distributed to all the schools in the shire," he recalls. "But the message was mainly one of harm minimisation. The concept of total abstinence wasn't considered at all. I felt there could be something more to say." Enter Uncorked!.
After obtaining a copy of Uncorked!, Mr McKenzie began to share it with colleagues. Mr McKenzie tells how, on his way to the council's Christmas function, he was impressed to go into the office of the local newspaper, the Riverine Herald. He was introduced to a reporter. "I just explained to her that I wanted to get a message across to the young people about the harmful effects of alcohol and that this book, I believed, would do it," he reports. "And I asked whether she could review it for me and put it in the paper if she thought it was worthy-and I left it with her overnight.
"The next day, she asked me a few questions about my enthusiasm for the book and she said, 'This will be a good story.' So in the following Friday's paper-just before New Year's Day-it went in the paper."
Mr McKenzie said he was particularly impressed by the book's suggestion of a licence for drinkers. "I wrote a memorandum on the licensing proposal to the woman in our Shire involved in contacting police and other emergency services, who meet together once or twice a year to put into effect emergency plans," he says. "It went on to the police inspector at Echuca and he wanted the book. So he's got the book and is reading it now."
"It's kind of an unfinished story at the moment," he adds.
According to Uncorked! co-author, Dr John Ashton, Mr McKenzie's story is one of many. "A lot of people are keen for the message to get out-to young people in particular," says Dr Ashton, strategic research manager for Sanitarium. "Part of the plan was to provide such a resource. There didn't seem to be any available source that put together the many different aspects of the alcohol problem."
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[ Bookshelf review ]
- After carefully reading Uncorked! I am convinced I need to take action and alert everyone I can about the dangers and hazards of alcohol. This book has stirred me to realise I have probably neglected my duty of care. I have not even been aware of many of the issues involved. I have not spoken up to inform those people whom I have been responsible for about all the disastrous affects alcohol can cause on individuals, homes and society at large.
So my mission is clear-to share the up-to-date information and scientifically proven dangers of alcohol. Authors John Ashton and Ron Laura have spent 10 years monitoring the social and health impacts of alcohol. Uncorked! is based on extensive health and social research studies and clinical and community observation. Besides the impressive yet tragic statistics throughout the book, many stories of personal lives broken or hurt because of alcohol are included. The story of the young girl raped, bruised and battered found on a Sydney rubbish heap beside a stinking toilet, revolted, saddened and angered me. These stories are powerful reminders that the misuse and abuse of alcohol is appalling and costs Australia $A7 billion per year.
The 10 chapters are riveting reading and are supported by impressive current references. Uncorked! reveals evidence to show that alcohol is a poison, that alcohol even damages the reproductive system of young adults, it causes brain damage to the foetus, that alcohol causes women and men to be degraded, that alcohol causes most domestic violence, murders, broken bodies and homes. It shows that alcohol and families do not mix.
We have a responsibility to be informed and speak up for those who hurt and for those who don't know or care. Uncorked! gives the history of the mechanistic world view that has so permeated our culture. The authors remind us that we need "to become stewards of nature's resources and a caring partner in her life-giving systems. . . . It is only through exercising duty of care as a fundamental principle of society rather than self-interest that sustainable health and prosperity can be achieved, and the need for alcohol and drugs replaced by the joy of human relationships and love" (page 115).
Ashton and Laura suggest that society can no longer keep the needless pain and suffering of alcohol abuse hidden. Therefore they have suggested strategies society and governments should adopt to make people aware and obligated to respect humanity. Not enough has been said to promote the sense of informed choice that people can make. It is time to recognise we have a duty of care to our children from the foetus to adulthood and beyond. Uncorked! gives us the information and the guidelines to act.
Every school, church and home needs a copy of Uncorked! now. This is urgent. - Joy Butler
