alcohol

It was a slaughter. By the time I got around to buying seven shots of Kessler for the table — “smooth as silk” — we were all coloring well outside the lines, flirting with the ladies, shouting half-bright witticisms at one another. Yes, for the Girth’s 29th birthday, after a very lovely and grown-up dinner of cayenne chicken and freshly-made pesto, we got drunk.

This is an old passtime, one that brought us together as wild young men, and still serves a bonding purpose, even if the path is now more well-worn and recovery a bit more difficult. It doesn’t happen that often, this dionysian fugue, this western tradition of peeling back the civilized parts of our brains. We’re more self-conscious and protective; more self-judging too. We’ve got better things to do a lot of the time. We worry about our health. Still, the ritual persists.

Considerable vulnerability is created, both during and after. This is part and parcel with any loss of control, and it’s what we hope for I think, part of the draw. Things will be admitted, attempted, words blurted, action taken. Magical events may transpire, and in the hard light of day, with luck, truth will reveal itself.

The morning finds me shaky, giddy, mumbling rationalizations and pining away over a girl I haven’t seen in more than year. The hard light reveals an empty landscape; my cupboard is bare. It’s a weak kind of feeling, and I don’t like it.

All of this is information, and with that and some will a change is going to come. As the philosopher says, beliefs are habits of action. Mine are in need of refreshment, renewal. I’ve been numbed-up, stuck in a rut, far less than 100% of who I am. I’ve been sleeping in late and reclusing on the weekends. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

Somewhere along the way I fell out of love with my life. I stopped taking risks or reaching very far. The stars fell from my eyes, and now I feel both bored and boring, a pedestrian person in desperate need of an attitude adjustment.

Huh. This turned into kind of a bummer of a blog post. Sorry about that. It’s not that hard to make your heart beat faster, but it’s nigh impossible to force a new feeling.

And life’s really not that bad. I aught not to whine. Superbowl was pretty great, I thought.

I suppose I’ll close it out with an old good video, in honor of where this all started:

UPDATE: A sleuthing commentator suggests it’s a low/non-alcoholic beer. Add as many grains of salt to the following as you see fit.

G-dubs is on the sauce, in case that hasn’t been obvious for a while. The headline is Illness Sidelines Bush at G-8 Summit. Bottle flu is a bitch, man.

I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with a president drinking, or being drunk even. However, if Bush has actually internalized the AA model of relating to alcohol — which is debatable; it’s totally possible that his whole Billy Graham come-to-Jesus thing was a sham from the start, or that the “dry drunk” theory is for real — it’s not a good thing for him to be drinking at all.

AA doesn’t really work any better than other methods of treating alcohol. Relapse-rates remain in the 90th percentile. However, the fact is that the AA model is founded on a paradigm of total abstinence and release of control, the recognition that the addict is helpless and that they must appeal to a “higher power” to control their relationship with the chemicals. Relapses from this kind of treatment — as opposed to those which try to create a more normalized relationship between addict and substance — tend to be total, a fall from grace so to speak.

So, while I’m 100% sure that the bureaucracy of government is fully capable of handling a president on a bender — Darth Cheney and all — it’s still more troubling to see Bush off the wagon than, say, Nixon getting boozed up and confronting protesters. Tricky Dick was in charge of the bottle. Dubs, if his narrative of alcoholic redemption is true, may be at its mercy.