We know a crisis when we see one.
We see the images on the news of towns ravaged by tornados or hurricanes, by earthquakes or fires. We hear reports of war zones and death tolls. We read the stories of the poverty, the homelessness, and the gang violence that afflict so many inner cities. We see the ribbons and hear the rhetoric about so many calamitous diseases or circumstances.
Yes, we know a crisis when we see it.
But what if we don’t see it?
We believe that alcohol is the great stealth crisis in the United States today. The number of alcohol-related deaths in our country each year dwarfs the number of American soldiers killed in combat or American citizens killed by AIDS, yet alcohol receives a fraction of the coverage and passion. Tornados and hurricanes are limited to regions and seasons, but alcohol ruins lives coast-to-coast every day of the year.
This is the crisis that sneaks up on us in the midst of our good times: the crisis that makes us feel good, until it ruins us. And it is the crisis that we mostly don’t see except for one home at a time, and that doesn’t make the news.
And so our organization exists to bear witness to the dangers of alcohol, the freedom of sobriety, and the wisdom of abstinence.