Perspective on Booze
A lot of people have no real understanding of addiction and addiction behavior. I've met people who are the children of addicts and both of my parents had one parent who was an alcoholic. They think that because they have this experience with drunks or druggies that they understand the process and put all down to will power and not caring enough.
My mother still has a great deal of resentment towards her father. This resentment carries over towards her feelings towards her mother. She is angry that gram never stood up to her husband. She is angry about the childhood embarrassment.
The old man would never talk about what his father was like as he would rather have his children have memories of this kindly gruff old man we saw from time to time. One of my aunts tells a story of a time when Grandpa and his two eldest sons got drunk and then picked a fight or were drawn into a fight that involved the entire neighborhood. She tells of an alley awash with people beating the daylights out of each other. She was amazed that no one was seriously injured and no one went to jail.
So when me and my brothers talk about drinking they get upset. The old man will break in with one of his, "You know alcoholism runs in the family." And every once in a while I want to snap back with a, "Gee, I didn't know that. I guess those benders I used to pull didn't give me the knowledge base." Like I am unaware of the fact that I can not drink socially.
I can sit down with dinner and have a beer or two. That is about the extant of my ability. If I have two I will want a third. If I have money and in an amiable social situation I will have that third. If I have three then the fourth will be ordered before the third is finished and a fifth is not far behind. Then I may or may not switch over to mixed drinks or perhaps I'll just order a short whiskey and water to sip alongside my beers and soon I'm making friends and buying shots for my new friends because I am a happy drunk and I want everybody to have a good time. I'm may be utterly snot nosed after just an hour of this behavior maybe I can drag out the process for a couple more hours but the thing is even once I'm drunk, I'm so big that I can keep going on momentum for a very long time. Never doubt that a bender has inertia.
Then there is drugs. I'm not going to admit to anything but let me say that few people with alcohol impaired judgment do the right thing.
Fortunately I don't drive or I would probably have killed people back in the day.
When I left the bartending business I jokingly referred to it as drying out. The reality was I did go through alcohol withdrawal. I also learned that I killed a whole ton of brain cells. I'm just not capable of thinking about things as intelligently as I did ten years ago. I can read. I can learn but a lot escapes me. I am no longer the bright young idealist I once was.
So anyway this comes up because I joked about there being a free bar at a wedding we are attending this weekend. A cousin of mine had stopped by and had asked if I wanted to attend a talk being given at her university this weekend and I cried off joking that with an open bar I would probably be puking my brains out about that time so my day was packed. My mother over heard this and later gave me a snotty comment of how this weekend would not be a repeat of the performance I'd given at my older brothers marriage earlier this year.
The reception was located in a nice little hotel bar / banquet room. There was a cozy bar with a nice selection in one room and it had sofas ash trays and the other room was filled with all the tables and the DJ. I spent dinner in the banquet room then proceeded to hold up the bar he rest of the night through. I made friends with the bartender and his boss and then the guy who replaced him for a brief period while he closed down another bar. I was polluted. I stared with gin and tonic and there was no lack of people walking out to the bar to do shots with me.
I had warned the parents that this would happen. I told em I should get a room as it was a long way from home. This didn't happen. Instead we spent an over hour in the car and I had filled a plastic baggy with vomit shortly before we got home.
This weekend will not be a repeat of that behavior, but not because I was told to behave. That never factors into the equation. My body still remembers the hangover. I get a little acid in my stomach just thinking of the ache. This is all that stands in the way. There will be another time it is just not now.
It is hard to explain and I probably should be in some kind of treatment program or attending meetings. Either I'm not ready or willing to take that step. I still feel it is more of a socail disorder in that I have beer and booze in the house but I do not physically feel the need to get drunk or mentally feel like it. It was always about being out and having a good time. It was about loosing inhibitions and doing stupid things and waking up on strange couches. On a few tragic occasions it was about going to bed with someone and that never worked out well.
I remember watching a West Wing though where they explained a bit of it pretty well. The writer probably had some knowledge by way of experience. One characters lawyer asks if why the alcoholic went back to his room and drank. Didn't the alcoholic know better? The charcter explains knowing better doesn't matter. It's about a glass, a smell, a flavor, a feeling.
Well, I've analyzed that as much as I want to for now.
More Laters
My mother still has a great deal of resentment towards her father. This resentment carries over towards her feelings towards her mother. She is angry that gram never stood up to her husband. She is angry about the childhood embarrassment.
The old man would never talk about what his father was like as he would rather have his children have memories of this kindly gruff old man we saw from time to time. One of my aunts tells a story of a time when Grandpa and his two eldest sons got drunk and then picked a fight or were drawn into a fight that involved the entire neighborhood. She tells of an alley awash with people beating the daylights out of each other. She was amazed that no one was seriously injured and no one went to jail.
So when me and my brothers talk about drinking they get upset. The old man will break in with one of his, "You know alcoholism runs in the family." And every once in a while I want to snap back with a, "Gee, I didn't know that. I guess those benders I used to pull didn't give me the knowledge base." Like I am unaware of the fact that I can not drink socially.
I can sit down with dinner and have a beer or two. That is about the extant of my ability. If I have two I will want a third. If I have money and in an amiable social situation I will have that third. If I have three then the fourth will be ordered before the third is finished and a fifth is not far behind. Then I may or may not switch over to mixed drinks or perhaps I'll just order a short whiskey and water to sip alongside my beers and soon I'm making friends and buying shots for my new friends because I am a happy drunk and I want everybody to have a good time. I'm may be utterly snot nosed after just an hour of this behavior maybe I can drag out the process for a couple more hours but the thing is even once I'm drunk, I'm so big that I can keep going on momentum for a very long time. Never doubt that a bender has inertia.
Then there is drugs. I'm not going to admit to anything but let me say that few people with alcohol impaired judgment do the right thing.
Fortunately I don't drive or I would probably have killed people back in the day.
When I left the bartending business I jokingly referred to it as drying out. The reality was I did go through alcohol withdrawal. I also learned that I killed a whole ton of brain cells. I'm just not capable of thinking about things as intelligently as I did ten years ago. I can read. I can learn but a lot escapes me. I am no longer the bright young idealist I once was.
So anyway this comes up because I joked about there being a free bar at a wedding we are attending this weekend. A cousin of mine had stopped by and had asked if I wanted to attend a talk being given at her university this weekend and I cried off joking that with an open bar I would probably be puking my brains out about that time so my day was packed. My mother over heard this and later gave me a snotty comment of how this weekend would not be a repeat of the performance I'd given at my older brothers marriage earlier this year.
The reception was located in a nice little hotel bar / banquet room. There was a cozy bar with a nice selection in one room and it had sofas ash trays and the other room was filled with all the tables and the DJ. I spent dinner in the banquet room then proceeded to hold up the bar he rest of the night through. I made friends with the bartender and his boss and then the guy who replaced him for a brief period while he closed down another bar. I was polluted. I stared with gin and tonic and there was no lack of people walking out to the bar to do shots with me.
I had warned the parents that this would happen. I told em I should get a room as it was a long way from home. This didn't happen. Instead we spent an over hour in the car and I had filled a plastic baggy with vomit shortly before we got home.
This weekend will not be a repeat of that behavior, but not because I was told to behave. That never factors into the equation. My body still remembers the hangover. I get a little acid in my stomach just thinking of the ache. This is all that stands in the way. There will be another time it is just not now.
It is hard to explain and I probably should be in some kind of treatment program or attending meetings. Either I'm not ready or willing to take that step. I still feel it is more of a socail disorder in that I have beer and booze in the house but I do not physically feel the need to get drunk or mentally feel like it. It was always about being out and having a good time. It was about loosing inhibitions and doing stupid things and waking up on strange couches. On a few tragic occasions it was about going to bed with someone and that never worked out well.
I remember watching a West Wing though where they explained a bit of it pretty well. The writer probably had some knowledge by way of experience. One characters lawyer asks if why the alcoholic went back to his room and drank. Didn't the alcoholic know better? The charcter explains knowing better doesn't matter. It's about a glass, a smell, a flavor, a feeling.
Well, I've analyzed that as much as I want to for now.
More Laters
posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 2:48 AM
3 Comments:
Excellent post. Alcoholism runs in my family as well, and it's hard to deal with. How do you tell someone that you don't want to go places with them at night? How do you tell someone to put down the beer? How do you let someone know that last year when he fell down into a shrub and had to be picked up that something must be wrong if he refuses to admit.
Thanks I was beginning to think people weren't reading my longer rants and while I like to look up flash animation I prefer to work on my writing.
alcoholism is in my family too. my mother also carries embarrassment from her fathers troubles and anger. she worries about my sisters and i. she has no problem showing it. she hated my bushmills whiskey kick---which reminds me, i miss it.
it is difficult to support drinking while hating alcoholism/knowing its effects. especially difficult when around an alcoholic or a family member of one.
i don't think there is a "best thing to do" when discussing the situation. that's why i don't talk about it to mom.
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