born-again sucker

Speaking of silly reasoning, what upsets me most about my long period of daily drinking is not the drinking itself, which seemed to add up only to negligible physical/emotional damage, but how I believed in certain bullshit to keep up my compulsion. Being a user or an abuser of a drug is shameless, as long as you’re not hurting anyone but yourself. However, I think there’s plenty of shame in being a sucker.

My original reasoning for not indulging in any recreational drugs was pretty monochrome. It was essentially that the human brain has a way of working emotional issues out, and coming out on top, with healthy coping mechanisms and a positive disposition, and heavy drug use will interfere with that process. Well, as you may have been able to tell from the muscle twitches you had while reading that, alot of it is presumptuous and how shall we say, not true.

I'm an all or nothing kind of person. So when this reasoning started to fall apart in my mind, I simply thought "which drug is for me?". Alcohol seemed a very natural choice, but only because of more bad reasoning. Well, now I’m skeptical of everything but the kitchen sink, and I realize that there’s bullshit all over the question “To drink, or not to drink”.

Modern Drunkard Magazine is a magazine that most people can’t believe exists- and it didn’t, until fairly recently. It does not preach moderation of any sort like other drinking-related magazines might. It is really made for drunkards- and as such, never questions the greatness of alcohol and drinking. Well, they certainly have some –true- things to say that you won’t hear from MADD or your public high school(though you might see those things in your biology teachers thermos).

For everything that’s commendable about that, they also have some pretty shitty reasoning. Every time the question of alcohol’s effect on personality comes up, they mention a fairly short list of lovable and famous drinkers. This reasoning falls flat because they leave out the list of winos and barflies who are nobodies, and sober people who have left a huge mark in history.

I used to buy this nonsense. I’m glad that I proved to myself that drinking, and other recreational drug-use, is not bad by default. But that doesn’t mean that it's good by default either. All I did was temporarily trade in one bit of bullshit for another. And whether I drink or not after drying out, What's most important to me now is not being manipulated by my feelings or chemical dependencies but by my reasoning.