Walking a thin line with alcohol
By: Lauren Shepley
Tags: Acceptance, Anxiety, Drinking, Alcohol, Death

Photo by Khusen Rustamov on Pixabay

There are two disclaimers I would like to make before starting this article. This is an anti-alcohol piece so if you are a fan, this article is going to cause mental alarms to go off, and none of them will be pleasant. Second, ironically, this is not a pro-prohibition article.

First off, alcohol is a drug. That will not send too many shock waves, because our society has matured enough to accept it.

That being said, alcohol is the probably one of the worst drugs. Admittedly, there are probably worse such as crystal meth or krokodil, but in all fairness, alcohol probably makes the top twenty.

And it is legal!!!!

To be fair, prohibition is not the answer because that has never worked. Again in 2020 we proved this to be the case. In South Africa, on 27th March when lockdown was implemented alcohol was banned completely. This may have curtailed the substance’s abuse slightly, but many people were prepared to pay about triple the price for whiskey, beers, and wine seriously lacking quality.

Prohibition did not mean an end to alcohol consumption, it just meant people’s standards went way down.

So just to put it out there, I am in no way proposing a ban on alcohol.

Death

Let’s start with a brutally honest statistic. Alcohol kills about 3 million people a year. That is more than double the number of annual deaths caused by COVID19. While it is certainly inappropriate to buy people COVID19 shooters, this is not the case with alcohol. Alcohol has very much been embraced in social circles, so much that it is totally acceptable to share this poison with someone else. It is ironic how our economies have been stifled to respond to the COVID19 pandemic, but at the same time, our economies have been built on a drinking culture [1].

Happy birthday, my best friend, I got you a bottle of the thing that is 10th to 20th (depending on the country) greatest killer in the world. And this perfectly acceptable. Even buying an almost stranger a bottle of wine is a perfectly appropriate gift for dinner.

Honestly, it is simply bewildering that we buy alcohol for people we love.

Recently, I said to a loved one that I am sure I have had close death experiences with alcohol poisoning. First, I should tell you that according to my BMI, I am underweight. This means that alcohol knocks me with a death blow almost every time. The person I shared this with earlier said I was being dramatic. Sure, not being able to keep even water down for about 18 hours after drinking is an optimum state to be in. After a drinking binge, your whole system goes into shock. Your blood sugar has dropped significantly. You have lost almost all electrolytes. And your system is almost dehydrated.

That is how the poison of alcohol works. It is a diuretic. It makes you urinate and urinate — colloquially referred to as ‘breaking the seal’. Of course, generally you are bound to urinate more as you are consuming a lot of liquids.

Yet, do not be mistaken, the poison of alcohol works by getting the individual to constantly urinate, slowly dehydrating the system. Truly, it is a tortuous and nefarious form of death, if the more extreme should occur.

If I gave into my dark side and decided to torture someone to death, my choice would be alcohol poisoning. Being dehydrated one drop at a time and losing all body sugar sounds excruciating.

One of the biggest preconceptions of deaths caused by alcohol is drinking and driving. Admittedly many deaths are caused every year by this behaviour, but most deaths involve short-term and long-term alcohol abuse. Examples of the former include alcohol poisoning while the latter includes cirrhosis or liver cancer.

Perhaps, you think I am still being dramatic. The other day someone related a story to me about someone drinking to a state of total unconsciousness. This left the conscious person to protect the other person. They were so worried about their friend’s state that they had to feel their pulse for signs of life. This is not as uncommon as we might think. One of the consequences of extreme binge-drinking is unconsciousness. Many musicians have died because of being unconscious. Jimi Hendrix, in this state, suffocated on his vomit.

Social anxiety

Suddenly, everyone who suffers from debilitating social anxiety is coming out of the woodwork. I have met so many people in the last few years who believe they uniquely struggle with this condition.

I hate to break it to them, but the large majority have social anxiety.

There are few, very few people who do not feel intimidated in gatherings. That is almost always why huge mass gatherings such as church and concert attendance always break into smaller groups. It is also the reason why alcohol is so globally used as a recreational drug.

Alcohol numbs anxiety. It makes you care less about what people think, making you feel braver.

In this way, drinking alcohol is a form of medicating your social anxiety. Many people do not like to admit to being socially anxious, so most people will never say so. Honestly, meeting a group is rather daunting, the bigger the group, the more daunting the experience. Unlike chatting to people at work (as we all have a reason to be at the office for we are being paid to be there) meeting people at house parties or get togethers is not as easy as one likes to think. Perhaps, the more familiar the people are, the smoother the process, but all the people will have to still try to find a way to include everyone, and speak about a subject generally appreciated by everyone. Trust me, not all of us can find topics interesting to a whole group of people. If you think this is not the case, I dare you to have a chat with me. Currently, my favourite topic is how reading Nietzsche petrifies me. If I had my way, I would speak about how I suffered from insomnia after reading Nietzsche[2]. Truly, I have to admit is not a crowd favourite.

Though alcohol is a drug that subdues your anxiety, the issue is that it does not actually help you learn necessary social skills. If you keep relying on alcohol to help you overcome your anxiety, you are not really learning how to socialize. This is why people do dumb things all the time when they are drinking. They are not learning better social skills; they are simply numbing their anxiety in social contexts.

Happiness

One of more insidious recent experiences I had with alcohol was roughly half a year ago. After the break-up with my ex-, I was in a terrible state. I cried every single day. Even though, I experienced high levels of motivation, it was not due to being in a very good space — yet this is open debate. Back then, I was crying all the time. Every time, I was alone I broke out into tears. For goodness sakes, I had wounds on my eyes from constant rubbing.

Then, one Saturday, I decided to have one drink to relax or for whatever reason people drink, and about ten minutes later, I felt happier than I had felt in weeks. I was suddenly much more joyful and for no good reason. It was such a dramatic shift from how I had been feeling for the past months, that it hit me like a volcano eruption. Of course, before I had always known that alcohol lifts our moods, but it was different this time.

When you adopt the value that you will not base your happiness or good feelings on a lie or a delusion, alcohol becomes a non-option.

Personally, I do not think I am the only one. Of course, there is the age-old wisdom about people using alcohol to avoid their problems instead of trying to fix them. The problem is drinking is so socially acceptable, especially in more Western countries, that it becomes hard to distinguish the real motivation behind drinking. It is not as if everyone is lining up to admit their extreme depression or being totally transparent about their true suffering.

Getting clean and social pushback

Photo by Bridgesward on Pixabay

On and off, I have been trying to stop drinking for about three years. However, if I have to be completely honest, this probably goes back to about six years ago. I am not trying put myself forward as some perfect teetotaler. I drink, but for the past year I have managed to severely cut down. It entails very little alcohol, a lot of water, and no tipsiness — not even a little. Just slight tipsiness means a debilitating hang over which my state of health does not allow for anymore.

The thing is people do not seem to understand this. It is irresponsible of me to drink even a drop of liquid suicide, but I do.

The thing is I am not immune to social pressure, but I am also brave enough to admit it. Much fewer people are comfortable with me not drinking, than drinking. In the past, people always commented and encouraged drinking.

Teetotalism is a serious taboo.

If I were to convert to Islam, then, perhaps suddenly people in social circles would get off my back. However, simply giving up alcohol is not something people are ready to warm to. Not yet, anyway.

One observation I have made about the drinking culture is that it is very communist. Ha ha ha [3].

If I buy myself a shooter, I will buy one for everyone at my table. Or the next round is on me. Heck, even people go wild and end up buying the whole bar a round, even for people they have yet to exchange a word with (they will probably later 😊).

Though communist and socialist notions are currently trending, this not a good thing. Why if we are having another drink or want a shooter, do we buy for others? People have repeatedly bought me unwanted shooters. Sometimes, I have tried to stop them beforehand. Or sometimes, I had no knowledge of the purchase, only to come back from the bathroom finding a shooter or my next drink waiting for me. Bartenders and waiters even open drinks for you — perhaps, this is not universal, but in my country this is the case — so that you cannot even return the drink.

This communist nature of our drinking culture might share the financial burden, but to imagine that two people can handle the same amount of alcohol is sheer nonsense.

Often people double my height and weight will buy a round of shooters or the next round. It is perplexing that we believe everyone can handle the same amount of alcohol. Though, it is not someone else’s responsibility, more people have told me to have another one instead of stopping early. I do not blame anyone else, after all these decisions life in my hands. However, I do feel the tendency to keep the amount of drinking the same between drinking individuals is dangerous. I cannot keep up with a man who is double my weight, yet drinking culture expects me to.

Conclusion

The fact that society prefers to be inebriated and to experience the majority of social events drunk is probably a sign of a bigger problem.

Humans are especially social creatures compared to the more solitary types like snakes, leopards, sloths, and honey badgers. Solitary creatures have solitary creature problems like being vulnerable and being dependent entirely on themselves. Humans have social creature problems. A lot of our problems come from relationships with others — in fact, I think there is a strong case that all our problems are inherently social, but that debate is for another day.

Socialising and building social relationships is not as easy as we think. We love people, and they hurt us. Other people love us, and we hurt them.

The fact that we depend on alcohol to socialize, get through social situations, and, sometimes, life, simply demonstrates that being a human, social creature is hard.

The problem is that alcohol does not us solve these issues — and often, it creates more problems than to begin with. Perhaps, as our society evolves and matures our dependence on alcohol will lessen.

Having said that, we as humans walk a thin line with our binge-drinking and irresponsible-drinking culture.

Thank you for reading 😊

Notes

[1] It is also for this reason why a straightforward prohibition cannot work. If we had to completely ban alcohol too many people working in bars, restaurants, alcohol manufactures, and distributors will lose their jobs.

[2] I began reading Beyond Good and Evil. After about more than a week of insomnia, I abandoned Nietzsche. Now, I seem to have gotten over my insomnia, but I truly would like to finish Nietzsche, but I am not sure I am up for the challenge of sleepless night after sleepless night.

[3] Truthfully, I think many people are closet communists. This is joke at myself for being overly paranoid.