A 2008 survey by The Barna Group asked adults which, if any, of eight behaviors with moral overtones they had engaged in during the past week. The behaviors included looking at pornography, using profanity, gambling, gossiping, engaging in sexual intercourse with someone to whom they were not married, retaliating against someone, getting drunk, and lying. Of those surveyed:

• Twenty-eight percent had used profanity.
  
  

Leif Enger's Peace Like a River tells the story of Jeremiah Land, a janitor for the local school who has been known to perform miracles from time to time. He lives a relatively quiet life with his three children: 16-year-old Davy, 11-year-old Reuben, and 9-year-old Swede, a precocious little girl.

The novel takes a dark turn when Davy kills two teenage thugs who invade his family's home. It isn't long ...

An unidentified beer taster went to battle with a Brazilian brewery, alleging his bosses failed to provide the proper health safeguards when they ordered him to drink more than three pints of beer each day. For more than a decade, the worker faithfully consumed between 16—25 small glasses of beer as part of his daily routine. For good measure, the company even sent him home with a bottle of ...

Can alcoholics overcome their addiction? Seattle's Downtown Emergency Services Center doesn't seem to think so. It's spending $11 million on permanent housing for homeless alcoholics.

Seattle taxpayers were fed up with spending $50,000 per alcoholic, every year, on recovery programs, prison, and emergency room visits. The solution is 1811 Eastlake, a housing complex that accommodates 75 alcoholics. ...

While preparing for a cookout on July 3, 2006, a Delaware man decided to use gunpowder rather than charcoal or lighter fluid to get the coals glowing in his grill. The unorthodox fire preparation method blew up on him, and he suffered burns on his hands and face.

Police said the man had been drinking.

A popular belief among doctors and social scientists has been that many teens begin drug use and sexual activity to deal with depression. However, a study published in the October 2005 edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reverses those beliefs.

Health policy researcher Denise Dion-Hallfors comments: "Findings from the study show depression came after substance and sexual activity, ...

Actor Charlie Sheen, who starred in films like Platoon, Major League, and Wall Street, told Parade magazine that in spite of his success he felt like it was a sham and that if anyone found out he was done for.

According to Sheen, his father, Martin Sheen, chose a spiritual path to handle life. Charlie chose alcohol and drugs, and it nearly killed him. He almost died from a cocaine overdose in 1998. ...

John Wesley lived a disciplined life and was not afraid to hold other Methodists to a similar standard. His journal gives the impression that he spent as much time throwing people out of Methodist societies as he did persuading them to come in.

During one early visit to Bristol, he purged almost 20 percent of the society for sins including drunkenness, dishonest business practices, gossip, theft, arguing ...

At the Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah, Robert Downey Jr. said:

Oh, I can't drink these days. I'm allergic to alcohol and narcotics. If I use them, I break out in handcuffs.

Smoke Signals, a movie written by a Native American, concerns two friends, Victor (Adam Beach) and Thomas (Evan Adams), who were both saved as infants from a 4th of July fire in 1976. The fire claimed many lives on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho, and Thomas is raised by his grandmother because both his parents were killed. Victor is raised by his single mother after his alcoholic father ...