I think that drinking can help you to do some jobs better. Politicians, actors, salesmen, lawyers and executives in particular seem to perform better with a certain amount of lubrication. Perhaps it's because these professions demand at least a dash of dishonesty and a dollop of egotism. If it's part of the job description, then yes, alcohol can help you be phony and self-centered.
You might be thinking now that alcohol use is not the main reason Obama is different from Bush. Well OK, I'm out on a limb here. But the premise of this blog is that alcohol has a lot more to do with who we are than we think. Shouldn't we mindfully consider whether we want to be drinkers? Do we consciously make that choice? I suspect that most of us just stumble into drinking without giving much thought as to whether that's the life we want.
I never wanted a high-flying lifestyle. What I wanted was simple happiness, but didn't find it until I stopped drinking. As a drinker I wasted my life in sad, chemical self-indulgence, going nowhere. With my fantasy mistress, Miss Ethanol, I dreamed away the days and nights in a magical world where I was always good looking, clever, witty, gifted and important, without even trying.
Life is harder now in the real world, but I'm happy now and I wasn't then. Real life has 100% more active ingredients than a life of alcoholic self-importance. If happiness is more important to you than fame and fortune, you need to live alcohol-free.
Life is harder now in the real world, but I'm happy now and I wasn't then. Real life has 100% more active ingredients than a life of alcoholic self-importance. If happiness is more important to you than fame and fortune, you need to live alcohol-free.
Steve, thanks to your encouragement I quit my nightly 1 or 2 beers a few weeks ago, and in fact I do feel a lot better. The immediate reason was a course of steroid medication for an ear problem, but I plan to stay off.
ReplyDeleteAnother benefit: I sleep better, so I don't need a lot of caffeine in the morning to get going again. So I'm less depressed from alcohol, and less anxious from caffeine.
Possibly related to this, my brother has cut way back. The immediate cause was a recurrence of gout, but I hope that your indirect influence will help him see that he feels better in general. His excellent wife hopes he'll quit completely, if only because of the expense.
So Steve, you're definitely in the right here. We all learned in the 1920s that prohibition doesn't work—people resent killjoys even when they're right—but reasoned experience may still prevail.
And for whatever it may or may not be worth, I still like my take on this problem: when you feel bad, alcohol makes you feel better right away, but you feel worse later. It's an anesthetic; when it wears off, the pain is still there, and you're worse off from the rough medicine.
Happiness isn't always easy!