Drinking Problem

So I jokingly said to my gay husband and later to my brother that I thought I might have a drinking problem. Gay husband said that I was probably just having “a week” and that he really didn’t think I had a drinking problem at all. Even when we got into the car and my hands were visibly shaking and my vision was doing funny stuff, we decided it was probably the diabetes or sugar levels or something and went on to the park downtown to meet my brother’s family and watch the fireworks and stuff. Of course, gay husband is simply trying to keep me in the dark about my true condition because in the end he needs an in-denial alcoholic to partake in beverage consumption whenever time, money and plans permit. He is clearly biased and thus not to be trusted with an opinion on my self-diagnosis on this particular “problem.”

I repeated my suspicion to my brother at lunch yesterday and he said that if I was even talking about it then I did in fact have a drinking problem- at which point I quickly retracted my comment. I mean, one thing’s to joke about it but quite another for someone to call you on it. And who admits to these things anyway?

I once read that book, “Alcoholism for Dummies,” and according to all their definitions I am an Alcoholic- so is pretty much everyone I know. Now, I can take that one of two ways: decide that I’m hanging with a pretty questionable bunch of peoples or decide that that book was full of shit. So which is it you ask? Well, I’ll let you be the judge.

According to the book, you are an alcoholic if anyone in your close family tree was an alcoholic; it is because then you are predisposed to drink from seeing your grandpa or your dad drink and thus you have a ready and willing alcoholic inside of you just waiting to jump out. The book also says that if you “binge drink” during the weekend, or week, then you are an alcoholic. “Binge drinking” is referred to as drinking more than three drinks in one sitting at one time- three 12 oz. beers or three drinks containing 1 oz. of liquor each. The book goes on to say many more nonsensical things of that nature. It also tells you how to curtail your alcoholic predisposition and goes on to say that you can never be cured; that once you are an alcoholic you will never not be one. So why fight it? Be who you are, stand proud- or lay down when you can no longer stand on your own two feet. Isn’t that what they taught you in kindergarten or somewhere, to be proud of who you are- they didn’t say you got to choose what part of your life you had to be proud of did they?

I happen to know a few “recovering alcoholics.” The term is used quite differently by each one of them. To one, who happens to be a bartender, it means that he doesn’t drink himself into a stupor EVERY night, it means he actually attends meetings and it also means that somedays he says: “Fuck it, I miss the old feeling and I’m drinking tonight.” And he does and then he talks about it and you’re left wondering- wait, I thought you said you were going to AA.

Then there’s a neighbor who happens to be dating someone I know, and what it means to him is going to drunken fests, watching all the revelers, eating a funnel cake and then going home. (We suspect he may have a mini-bar hidden somewhere in his house as he also hides his smoking and if you are hiding that then chances are….. But wait, I’m being too judgmental here, he seems to make it to work on a daily basis and is usually in a very chipper mood and his little dog gets fed every day). To him, it also has meant having a “relapse” less than a year ago and then having to start the count all over again from “1” when he was at well over “370” or something like that. That must suck.

For yet another person it means finding new addictions or distractions. His happen to be running and Opera, meaning that he runs incessantly and he is constantly trying to find someone to accompany him to every show the local Opera company puts on during any given season. We always offer him shots of jagger when we’re out to dinner, but he politely refuses and refers us to the latest La Bohemme showing or the upcoming Don Giovanni at The Fabulous Fox. And it seems to be working for him as there have been no reports of a speeding, swerving Mercedes down any highway leading to his home in a long while. He has instructed all his close friends, and anyone else who'll listen, to play the theme song from La Boheme on a loop during his entire funeral service. And I wonder, did he really change? I bet before he started going to AA meetings and denouncing liquor for the foul substance it really is, he had asked someone, somewhere to place a bottle of his favorite drink in his casket. But then, haven't we all done that at some point?

While I have never been to an AA meeting, sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to go to one. It would serve two purposes I guess- one: to get me over my slight discomfort of public speaking and two: to see REAL alcoholics, ‘cause most definitely I am not an alcoholic. I am a lot of things, that I will admit, and have already admitted thru this here blog, but an alcoholic? No. It doesn’t matter if my mom insists I’m just like dad. Even if I sometimes wake up fully clothed in bed or next to my bed on the comfort of the gleaming hardwood floor shoes and all- that probably just means I was too tired to change into proper pajamas and actually make it onto bed; from work and all you know. Even if I sometimes find I cooked an entire meal the night before and the entire kitchen is covered in spills, that probably just means I was early in getting ready for the next dinner party I'd planned for the following month is all. And even if I call long-lost relatives and long-gone relations in other states and then thry to pretend I'm Aunt Pittypat from "Gone with the Wind," that just means I was rehearsing for my next movie role in the upcoming remake of "Gone with the Wind: Real World Atlanta Style."

Go ahead, ask my gay husband if I'm an alcoholic, just don't ask my little brother- he's a little disinformed at the moment.