Insert Foot. vs. Alcohol Awareness Month.

I see it’s officially that time of the year again: Alcohol Awareness Month.

I know this because part of my day job is writing about local governments, which do these things called “proclamations” at the beginning of their public meetings.

These proclamations serve to officially offer that local government’s support of something (ex: “children”) or non-support of something else (ex: “death”).

Proclamations usually don’t get a lot of attention unless small-brained people lacking hobbies hear their local government is about to fly a flag they don’t like. Then they suddenly get all civic minded for the children or something.

Speaking of the children, Alcohol Awareness Month is typically and loosely aimed at underage drinking. Which is great – I’m all for targeting underage drinking, especially now that I’m not underage. Everybody can get behind saying underage drinking is bad unless they’re on the Gilroy City Council (Google it, if for no other reason to remind yourself that common sense isn’t a prerequisite for holding public office).

So I saw one of my local city councils, representing a town in which I myself did a lot of underaged (and overaged) drinking, offering up a proclamation supporting Alcohol Awareness month on last week’s council agenda.

My first reaction was that drinking is one of the first things I think of when consulting my memory bank of experiences involving that place. They have a lot of places at which to drink. Now, to be fair, the chances are usually pretty good that my brain associates any given place with drinking.

But on second thought, I said to myself: “Myself, that’s a fascinating proclamation, given how much tax money that city racks in from its downtown bars and restaurants, and how desperate people were during the pandemic to get these places open again.”

I know what you’re thinking, and you are correct: underage drinking isn’t the same as overage drinking. Because we all know the day a person turns 21, they immediately mature, act responsibly, and don’t overdo things.

But then I noticed the very first line of said proclamation: “Whereas alcohol is the most commonly used addictive substance in the United States…”

Correct. Not just for the underage drinkers. And that whole addiction thing usually doesn’t finish its work until someone is considerably older than underage. You can start drinking at 14 or you can start at 28 and it may not matter. I know people in either category who ended up in rehab, their lives in flaming ruins. Once their brains got the taste, they weren’t going back without serious help.

The next few whereases of the proclamation talked about underaged drinking being bad, statistics, surveys, etc. … then it “resolved” to proclaim April as “Alcohol Awareness Month” and encouraged “all community members to pledge to take a stand to prevent underage drinking and alcohol abuse.”

Some of the survey statistics cited the very school district of which I was a member when I learned how to drink, back in the Just Say No days. Which I thought was kind of funny. That was back when we were supposed to just say no to crack. I don’t remember alcohol being a big part of the agenda.

“The most commonly used addictive substance in the United States…” Which, oh by the way, so much of our economy and local governments depend on—like they were addicted to it.

The fact that the U.S. is economically addicted to alcohol sales is one of our country’s greatest hypocrisies. Just like cities racking in money from liquor licenses and taxes, then paying police to wait around these same places to arrest people for DUI.

Of course it’s a matter of personal responsibility. And, no, I have no solution to the hypocrisy. I don’t want the 21st Amendment repealed. It’s too late, anyway.

But it is something to think about and ask ourselves if we’re doing more than just issuing useless proclamations.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.