Hell Ain’t Cool

Good advice sometimes comes in comes in unexpected ways -- and from the most unlikely sources. As my son related some counsel passed on to by another young man, I saw that even those whose lives have been stamped with the marks of failure could have words of wisdom. Let's call the young man "Harvey."

My son and Harvey were in the office of a mutual friend -- we'll call him "Edward" -- discussing work projects. Even though my son barely knew him, Harvey leaned over and earnestly confided, "Let me give you a piece of advice: don't ever touch a drop of alcohol. Your friends will say that it's fun or that it's cool, but let me tell you something. Hell ain't cool, and that's what my life is -- a living hell."

"I will never understand some people. They never give up on you no matter how many times you fail them. They just never give up. My family won't even look at me. I'm the black sheep. When they gave up on me, others picked up my torch and have refused to put it down." He was speaking of Edward.

Edward was in a position to help Harvey and often gave him jobs that didn't really have to be done. He did it anyway, hoping that Harvey would do better, that he might turn his life around, that he might eventually amount to something.

We've lost track of Harvey. The last we heard he was in the hospital after suffering life threatening side effects from his drinking. From there he went to a rehab facility in hopes of reclaiming part of the destruction wreaked by his habit.

English author Charles Reade once said, "Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny." Harvey's life illustrates this so clearly. Judging from the intensity of his revelation, he must have once though that drinking was "cool," something he could toy with and still enjoy. Surely he had seen other lives destroyed by it. Still, there's something in each of us -- the young in particular -- that whispers deception in our ears. "Have fun and don't worry. You're too smart for anything to go wrong. You can beat the system." But it's just not true.

It sounds as if Harvey had been enticed by a "friend" to take his first fateful drink, a decision he has probably regretted thousands of times. But however his tragedy began, he slowly went down the path of destruction, one drink at a time. Eventually, habit turned to necessity, which set the stage for destiny. Now in chains that he cannot break, Harvey is destined, it seems, to be enslaved in a life of misery and shame.

I appreciate Harvey's boldness in sharing the truth -- a truth that required him to be merciless in his honesty about himself -- with my son.

Hell ain't cool. Not even close.

Copyright 1999 James McAlister

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