Booze

Drinking is a young man's sport. Booze catches up with you in the end, and this was the case with someone I used to see often in my drinking days because we had the same regular stops but haven't seen in years since. Rec'd an email regarding a booze-related health crisis he's experiencing -- I think he needs support that, yes, he can quit and survive, even thrive. The hardest part is replacing your social life (or, closer to my case, reducing it in major ways). He notes that he's at about the same age I was when I quit (one's mid-50s).

Contrary to the U.S. recovery industry, there are many ways to quit drinking. Indeed, studies in Europe show that the success rate of those quitting on their own is as good as those in treatment programs. AA doesn't want you to know this, of course. In fact, some abusers of alcohol learn how to drink responsibly, another dark secret. The U.S. treatment industry is filled with myths that are not supported by what you can find in any medical library. I had the good fortune in my own VA treatment to be assigned to work in the medical library, where I found data they don't tell you about in a typical program. The Europeans have a very different take on all the disease and recovery issues. Not that AA is bad: it's just not the only way to do it. There is a strong Christian and a strong anti-intellectual bias in AA that turns many folks off. I was one of them. I'll never forget the AA meeting in which I suggested we not end with the Lord's Prayer but with a Buddhist chant. Boy, was that a riot!

At any rate, if you drink booze significantly and regularly -- and my friend was not a huge drinker, just a regular heavy one, as near as I can tell -- eventually the body will have something to say to you about that. The doctor has gotten his attention, just as it was a doctor who got mine.

I don't miss drinking at all. But I do miss the laughter of a barroom in the right moment with the right people. I have found no other environment in which certain absurdities of life are appreciated with more relish.

I might even drink again. If I get terminal cancer, I well might. But then again, maybe not. If it comes to that, I'll do what I do.