"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own.  No apologies or excuses.  No one to lean on, no one to rely on, and no one to blame.  The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.  This is the day your life really begins."  ~Bob Moawad~

     What does being in control truly mean? What is taking a challenge? What is making a commitment? How do we stay in control, take a challenge, and be committed if there are numerous advertisements about alcohol, cigarettes, and other tobacco products that are calling our names to go against what is right? Drugs have become a problem in advertisement, even though they are not exactly encouraged in the media they are still advertised in the mouths of those around us. The common response one might hear if someone confronts another about being an alcoholic or addicted to a certain type of drug or cigarette is, “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.” These advertisements do not help one bit because they show the consumers what they want to see and hear but they do not show the reality. They do not show the effects of smoking cigarettes or drinking that bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. They want to sell the product not scare you away with the truth.

     A group that does a fine job helping people with these problems is Above the Influence. They recognize that yes, we as teens do have many pressures and they are here to help us. They strive to show the reality that these alcohol and tobacco ads are hiding.  We don’t like when someone takes control over our lives, such as our parents telling us what to do or other friends bossing us around. Just do you and if you do not like any one else in control then why would you allow alcohol or drugs to take that control? Stay strong and do not let pressure get the best of you. This is your life, you make the decisions and as Bob Moawad said, “You alone are responsible for the quality of it.”

     Sometimes we forget to look at the facts, according to msnbc.com 75,000 people die from alcohol abuse every year and it shortens their life by thirty years. Some might say, “Well I don’t drink everyday, I only get drunk like once a week.” When we are not in control and we can not take this life anymore that we are living we will turn to alcohol; getting drunk once a week turns into getting drunk twice a week, then three times a week, and then eventually everyday. Abuse does not happen over night it is something that is built up and then finally explodes to something worse and that is death. According to thetruth.com, tobacco kills 1200 people every day. This is not a joke, imagine, 1200 people dying everyday is 438,000 people in one year and in two years that is nearly 1,000,000 people dying. These facts are what these alcohol and tobacco ads do not show. They do not show people dying, they show people laughing, having fun, and living life. That is what I am going to explain today, where the ads are hiding the reality.

     First I would like to look at the different alcohol and tobacco ads that are being shown to the world. The first ad I would like to analyze is the Grey Goose Vodka ad. The slogan alone even hides us from the reality, “Where the Goose goes, the night will follow.” This can be taken in many different aspects. What they are trying to say is, “Hey drink our stuff and you will definitely get it in.” They do not come out and say it but it is in their ads. There are men and women kissing and drinking and simply going with the world’s definition of ‘fun’. They constantly talk about this ‘night’? Where is it taking us? Well this night will not be to much fun once you get pulled over for driving under the influence, it will not be fun once you enter into your home and you realize that your wife is waiting for you and wondering where you have been, it will not be fun the next morning when you can barely get up, which causes to miss work and potentially lose your job. This is the reality, not the laughs and not the sex or the women. Alcohol is no joke. This brings us back to the topic of control, if you cannot control your drinking than do not do it because it is only going to cause more and more problems.

     Tobacco is also of no help. There are more people dying of tobacco use then of alcohol. As you can see the two ads above, smoking is the cool thing to do. Something these ads constantly use are women and that is how they will sell their product because they make the consumer believe that if they buy their product they will get women and they will be considered cool! Once again these ads are hiding the reality. They are hiding the facts. Cigarettes may cause cancer, they blacken your lungs and teeth, and to my knowledge, smoking cigarettes is like planning on your death. Once again people use the excuse, “Life is short, we are going to die anyway.” Why wouldn’t you want to live as long as you could? Don’t you want to see your kids get married or even yourself get married? Don’t you want to be an uncle/aunt or grandpa/grandma? Tobacco takes your life away and similar to alcohol it destroys you, not over night but in time you will crumble and fall into your own grave.

     So where does Above the Influence come in? If you watch the ad about the stagehands you will realize that these teens are at a party all connected to strings. This is symbolizing that they are not in control of themselves; the alcohol is controlling them, the drugs are controlling them. If you are not in control, who is; such a great question. As I stated earlier if we must be in control, we must take that risk and say NO! At times we are scared, we are scared to tell our friends that you only want one glass of wine and not ten or you don’t want that blunt. We are afraid of what others will think of us. Well I tell you who cares what others think. When you are on your deathbed do you really think those people are going to be there with you holding your hand? If people cared about you they would respect that one glass of wine is okay or you don’t need the blunt or cigarette. It is all about who we surround ourselves with and its about being focused and never losing control.