{"id":20370,"date":"2023-12-27T00:31:15","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T07:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=20370"},"modified":"2023-12-26T17:35:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T00:35:57","slug":"wheres-theres-a-will-theres-a-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/27\/wheres-theres-a-will-theres-a-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Where\u2019s There\u2019s a Will There\u2019s a Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/em><\/p>\n

New Year, new phone, who\u2019s this? (Joke)<\/strong><\/p>\n

What will 2024 bring? Oodles and boodles of snow so you can slay the slopes? Fresh romance? A new child? We have so much to be grateful for in Blaine County. How do we celebrate?
\nMany will be with family, while a good portion will join up with friends, and there\u2019s a few things to do around the Valley.
\nIf your fashion game is on point, you might want to check out the New Year’s Eve Snow Ball at River Run Lodge for only $125 per person! You\u2019ll have a chance to sip champagne, detonate the dance floor and hopefully share a special kiss at midnight. There\u2019s also New Year’s Eve night skiing from 6-9 p.m. at Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge in Sun Valley.
\nThere\u2019s an \u201980\u2019s New Year Bash at Whiskey Jacques\u2019 on Main, an online breathwork and sound healing experience called 9D “No Ordinary” New Year Transformation Healing and Wellness Event, and A Sun Valley Story at the Sun Valley Opera House where you can hear \u201ca newly reimagined holiday celebration experience featuring the music of Colin Martin, Brooks Hartell, Brad Hershey and Jason Vontver.\u201d (eventbrite.com)
\nMaybe you\u2019d like to do some backcountry recreating with the elk, antelope and deer \u2013 oh my! Pack extra powdered water and some eggnog jerky. Maybe you\u2019ll hang with the fam and watch the ball drop in New York City over the Internet in your Apple Vision virtual reality goggles. What a time to be alive!<\/p>\n

\u2028\u2028Resolve et Coagula
\n<\/strong>
\nOne core tenet of the New Year\u2019s tradition, in many people’s lives, are resolutions. A fresh Gregorian calendar start can inspire all the thoughts and hopes of making positive, beneficial changes in one\u2019s life. What changes would or even should you make? Will you actually make those changes or is failure baked in and part of the joke? Do you have the power, the willpower to add to your life, fix something that nags at you and change for the better?
\nWillpower is mighty, real magic requiring discipline, foresight and, most of all, your own personal determination to follow through with integrity.
\nThere\u2019s an interesting correlation between New Year\u2019s resolutions and a facet of most New Year\u2019s parties. Quite often when resolutions are considered, discussed and decided upon we are laughing, partying, and more often than not, drinking. Alcohol has become the prime staple of most celebrations. Much money is made on this and nearly as much spent suggesting its consumption:
\n\u201cZenith expects alcohol advertising spend to reach \u00a36bn (US$8.5bn) by 2023, surpassing its 2019 figure. Alcohol advertising is expected to increase in line with the ad market as a whole (4.9%), up 4% in 2022 and 5% in 2023.\u201d (thespiritsbusiness.com)
\nAnd while we\u2019re told that a little is good for the heart, reason and science show that too much is not good for anything. What\u2019s a little and what\u2019s too much?<\/p>\n

The Sound of News<\/strong>
\nDo resolutions require a sound mind?
\nAnother term for the product of alcoholic fermentation is \u2018spirit.\u2019 Even going back to the etymology of the name, alcohol purportedly has been around for as long as people.
\n\u201cResidue from a beer-like,13,000-year-old fermented drink was recently unearthed in Israel, and evidence of a fermented drink of rice, honey, and fruit discovered in China dates to 7000\u20136600 BCE.\u201d (sciencefriday.com)
\nHow has this played out for society, communities, and families? On a gradient from net benefit to net detriment, where does the use of alcohol lie? For many it carries the insinuation of cheer, joy, celebration and laughter while for just as many, or one drink too many, it carries loneliness, confusion, sadness and anger.
\nWhat spirit will be involved in your New Year’s resolutions? Is it your will and yours alone that will produce the results of a lasting, positive life change?
\nThe word alcohol is widely believed to stem, etymologically, from the Arabic \u201cal-khul,\u201d though there is sharp controversy among scholars as to whether this was meant to also describe a maliciousness that overcomes the one who imbibes. Regardless of the name, on that same note, when looking at statistics related to alcohol \u2014 at the physical, spiritual and moral degradation that afflicts so many \u2014 there is a strong correlation with causation of a destructive force.
\n\u201c\u2019\u2013 Alcohol is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality \u2014 Alcohol is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, with harms related to both acute and chronic effects of alcohol contributing to about 5 million emergency department visits and more than 140,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. \u2028\u2013There is no perfectly safe level of alcohol consumption, as current research points to health risks including cancer and cardiovascular risks even at low levels of consumption, regardless of beverage type. \u2028\u2013 Alcohol is a carcinogen associated with cancer of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, colon, rectum, liver, and female breast, with breast cancer risk rising with less than one drink per day.\u2028\u2013The whole body is impacted by alcohol use \u2014 not just the liver, but also the brain, gut, pancreas, lungs, cardiovascular system, immune system, and more \u2014 and may explain, for example, challenges in managing hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, and recurrent lung infections. (niaaa.nih.gov) A rose by any other name?<\/p>\n

\u2028\u2028Everything in Moderation, Including Moderation?<\/strong>
\nPick your poison, it\u2019s often said \u2014 is that meant to be taken literally? In the literary classic, Brave New World, one of the central characters in inexorably shunned both psychologically and socially from the book\u2019s hyperengineered \u2018utopia\u2019 due to having alcohol accidentally splashed into his genetically modified birth serum. The results are horrific.
\nAs adults, we\u2019re reminded to \u201cDrink Responsibly\u201d and that is good advice. Whatever you choose to do this year, at least you\u2019re doing it in Blaine County, Idaho. May mindfulness, consideration and expanded awareness be with you on this New Year\u2019s celebration and likewise onward down the community corridors!\u2028\u2028Happy Holidays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL New Year, new phone, who\u2019s this? (Joke) What will 2024 bring? Oodles and boodles of snow so you can slay the slopes? Fresh romance? A new child? We have so much to be grateful for in Blaine County. How do we celebrate? Many will be with family, while a good portion will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,80,18,37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-heritage","9":"category-news","10":"category-special-feature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20372,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20370\/revisions\/20372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}