Communication Essay

Addiction essentially refers to dependence to something that is not always warranted, this therefore means that addiction can be a dependence to anything that has a potential of putting somebody in a kind of a habitual bondage. However, for a long time addiction has been associated with dependence to substance, only a few years ago did things like sex, pornography, video games, food, and gambling among other ‘addictive’ thing came to be recognized as addictive in its actual sense. Just like other addiction, alcohol can be looked on more as a bondage than a relaxer and an important component in metabolism. There are those who will argue that the devil is in excessive consumption of alcohol as far as addiction is concerned. There are also those who would like us to belief that the consumption of alcohol is the in-thing, which is an opinion that has gained currency with the youth.

Whatever your opinion, there is not doubt that the consumption of alcohol has advantages and disadvantages, although in different measures. The disadvantages mostly stemming from the addiction part of it while the advantages stemming from the health implication of the consumption of the required amount of alcohol. Both an easy by Dean A. Meek and a poster from the Fotosearch website that has been used extensively in the anti-alcoholism campaigns for quiet some time seeks to persuade reader and people in general that alcohol consumption, in whatever amount, though seeming fashionable and enjoyable is an addiction and therefore a bondage that should be avoided at all cost (Fotosearch Stock Photography, 2010).

In his essay, “friends or foes?” Dean Meek (1995) argues that alcohol consumption is not as fashionable as some people would like us to belief, it is also his belief that no consumption of alcohol is beneficial because in almost all cases it leads to addiction which is a real bondage whichever way you look at it. Borrowing from his own experience with the booze and the subsequent addiction, Dean shows that taking alcohol for whatever reason has negative effect that at time can be detrimental not just to the user but to others close to him, it can also cause bodily harm and damages of gigantic proportion, not to mention the untold suffering that it has potential of visiting to those charged with the responsibility of taking care of an alcohol addict, if it reaches that far that is (Meek, 1995).

The poster from the Fotosearch carries the same message, what come in the mind of a person after casually looking at the poster is that alcohol consumption is a bondage irrespective of whether it is in small amount or large, this is better demonstrated by the small amount of the alcohol in the glass which to majority of the people might seem quiet safe to consume. This is one of the reasons which make the poster comparably more effective than the essay in delivering the intended message. One this about this poster is that it is loaded with serious caution on alcohol consumption, its attractiveness is also catchy to the most vulnerable group to this vice, i.e. the youths. However, the essay also as a big impact on students and those who dare read the whole of it, it title, “friend or foe”, also provokes people to read it which is a plus as far as the delivery of the message is concerned. Unlike the poster, the essay is convincing, this is because by giving an experience of a person who has been there and seen it, many reader gets the impression that the essay is simply a word of caution from a person who would not like someone else to go through the ordeal that he went through. Of the two, poster is more effective because of its simplicity and its mode of communication.