I’m dealing with a family medical emergency, so I’m using the way-back machine to resurrect another favorite from the 2007 version TDA. I’ll have an update on what’s going on in my life later this week and some new material I promise.
I grew up hearing the horror stories of heroin and PCP (70/80′s formative years). Back then most of us kids weren’t all that turned on by the thought of anything heroin related that involved a hypodermic needle and PCP, well too many cop shows had already made sure that I wasn’t interested in base jumping without a parachute. Alcohol on the other hand, was a whole different story. Take Bluto from Animal House in his cool “college” sweatshirt draining a bottle of Jack Daniels or crushing a beer can on his forehead, now that was just plain awesome.
The acceptance of the dangers of alcohol when compared to “hard” drugs is analogous to the irrational fear of flying compared to driving an automobile. The odds of being killed in the air are 1 in 11 million, but the chance of being killed in an automobile accident is a very probable 1 out of every 5000. Now I consider both equally dangerous, but our society’s acceptance of alcohol as a benign substance in moderation as compared to the taboo reputation of drugs is just plain illogical.
I grew up in the small town South, where alcohol was considered a rite of passage and drugs were big city evils. Of course once I got into my teens marijuana became just as accepted as drinking, but the hard drugs were still “scary”. Even after I was an accomplished alcoholic and prescription drug abuser I still had an aversion to cocaine and heroin. Sure I sampled almost everything being drunk enough to have lost my fears and inhibitions, but never once did I try intravenous injections.
My fear of flying high didn’t save me though; my alcoholism took me to that same rock bottom destination.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I am raising an 11 and 12 year old. I discussed with them the other day about alcohol addiction, because drug education programs do not explain addiction, they focus on just don’t drink and legal and moral consequences. In a 2 block area near my house, you can get alcohol at Target, Walmart, the minute marts, Kroger, Meijer, just about every store where you buy stuff each day. I shopped for t-shirts for the 12 year old boy who wears adult sizes, and on one rack there were 6 shirts with different booze references and logos. Take note when you watch TV, and you will be a bit stunned to see how many dramas’ and comedies’ episodes have someone drinking alcohol, or showing booze bottles, glasses of wine. Our local zoo has a beer festival each year now. Of course this is not the sole cause of alcoholism, but you have to take pause in recovery when you realize that booze is an ingrained theme of our society. So these children will have to deal with all this and not become alcoholics. When you don’t drink alcohol, you can feel like you belong to a counterculture group! And TDA, may your family crisis pass soon and suffering end.
Thank you Z- I’ll write soon.
Sorry to hear you guys have a medical emergency. If you need anything let me know.
Ya, I got you, TDA. I just thought it was an interesting difference and one my gf and I have discussed at length.
Peace,
Scout
A friend of mine always says she’s going to start doing heroin, PCP, and robbing banks when she’s 80. I think Keith Richards also has this philosophy…
I know that the “acceptability” of alcohol made my first husband much more difficult, believe it or not, than my second.
society just accepts it. When you see a man knocking em back in a bar its seems normal, regardless if he is an alcohlolic or not. Pumping up a vein and a shooting up though is rarely considered normal or accepted.
I guess I should learn something from you, you must have had some tough time with both of your husbands. I just hate alcohol and that’s because I saw my father destroying himself in front of his children. It’s very painful…
that alcohol is so widely accepted. It is no higher on the scale of “acceptable addiction”. A crack whore is no worse than the MBA with a bottle of Beam. Addiction is nameless, hence the anonymous part of it all. It cares not for bank accounts, which lets face it, most addicts don’t end up with, or with status quo. I hate all of the liquor commercials and beer ads. It is all sad. It is also so readily available. My addict would drink when he couldn’t find drugs, something on every corner!
trying to isolate yourself from triggers and influence is relevant thing when you think how pervasive alcohol is in our society. Unless you are a Quaker or a hermit, you just have to learn to deal with it.
In reference to the above comment — that is one of the things that hugely separates the pure alkies from us druggies. Even the big book says we can go to bars if we have a good reason for going there.
But you won’t find the NA Basic Text saying we can go to crack houses and the dope man’s corner, even IF we had a good reason to go there. Recovering addicts (serious one’s anyway) avoid old people, places, and things associated with their addiction like the frickin’ plague — especially in early recovery. It doesn’t work for us to “deal with it.”
Anyway….My gf and I have had a lot of discussions about that issue so I thought I’d share it here.
The original post was awesome, TDA.
Peace,
Scout
hanging out in bars and with all the old alky friends, but alcoholics do have to deal with constant availability and advertising of alcoholic beverages (tv, grocery store, billboards…). That is what I meant by the “deal with it” comment. In my early years of sobriety I too avoided all the old hangouts and potential triggers- I think your advice is sound for both alcoholics and addicts because there is no sense tempting fate regardless the strength of one’s recovery.
At least no avoiding addiction for those who are prone to it.
My husband grew up with two alcoholic parents and a host of drug addicted older siblings. He was terrified of becoming an addict — so, he never drank (when we met, it made him uncomfortable that I did), never did drugs, never touched a cigarette. But still, genetics and environment had set him up for addiction, and he found a behavioral drug of choice in women, porn, sex. It’s scary how powerful it can be — and how fear just squeezes you to another drug, not out of addiction entirely.