I was just about to wave goodbye to the alcohol support section as although it’s my own fault for reading it, the justification and denial that posters provide each other with is just appalling. I was just reading a thread of a poster who wanted to give up for a year and predictably just three months in they had consumed alcohol on a break they had been on, had booked another holiday and announced that nah, they are just gonna drink again, it’s not even my business, but it just pissed me off.
This thread is excellent and I think deserves to be bumped from time to time also it’s not just a thread for the relatives of ‘terminal alcoholics’ as one idiot poster put it earlier, it’s for anyone who defensively ‘enjoys’ alcohol.
I’ve tried to explain before that alcohol is a poison, any of us who have ever drank it are doing so because it’s a drug, it gives us a buzz and from that moment we associate that buzz with that drinks flavour, label, brand, the sounds pouring it makes, the pub or room we are in or the people we are with. All of these things are not what we truly enjoy, it’s the buzz, it’s the neurotoxins, it’s the drugs that we are partaking in that hook us, but alcohol is an acceptable drug, Jesus and aunt Judith both enjoyed it, so it’s fine, other drugs, oh no, they are evil.
The biggest argument I’ve read in favour of alcohol consumption is that it’s been around forever and is woven into the fabric of human history, you can’t stop it. Well I’d never try to, but what I do want to see is society changing their view of alcohol, I don’t think it should have beautiful labels, be affordable or be treated as the acceptable middle class indulgence that it is, people should be allowed to do it, but it should be viewed very differently, the way smoking, weed or pills are, it’s actually more destructive that many other substances. But there is just so much denial. Of course one argument that would crop up against huge price hikes or ghoulish labels like on cigarettes would be you would drive people to brew their own, well let them if it makes them feel like they are doing frowned upon drugs and stops the normalisation of this devastating substance.
I have seen a couple of horrendous endings from alcohol like those on this thread, but I’ve also seen other illnesses due to alcohol, cancers, strokes, dementia, personality changes and all from people who enjoy alcohol in a civilised way and don’t have a problem as they or society sees it, but if you partake in drugs, in however small amounts these are the real risks and if anyone is that confident that they are not addicted in even a small way, then why ever have the alcohol at all. The arguments always come back because they like the flavour, it’s a social lubricant, prohibition didn’t work, people used to drink weaker versions because water used to be unsafe etc etc etc. I’m yet to hear an actual convincing argument as to why humans still actually need this stuff!
I’m sorry to anyone from childhood until the end who has ever had negativity from this stuff in their lives, it really serves no purpose, stories like everyone’s on here must keep being told, but also everyone needs to be reminded that there are no positives to drinking.