2619 Lubrication.

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It is my opinion that, over time, in general, alcohol improves nothing, but pretending like it doesn’t exist is foolish. For something like this I have to write via observation as I have never been drunk. My guess is that it is not dissimilar to being overmedicated, which I have experienced. I’ve been around it most of my life and I dislike drunkenness in other strongly. But, as I said, it is a reality. Ed is a bit awkward, Nina is letting her hopes make the evening more intense than it normally would be and wants a quick solution. I think I can forgive her for that.

My parents are not drinkers. They have indulged at some points in their lives but almost never in my lifetime, so over forty years of very occasional drinking. My mother always got extremely sick after she drank which was dissuasive and dad just gets sleepy. My grandfather is allergic to alcohol, so no drinking for him. The rest of mom’s family indulge to varying degrees. Some to the point of death. For me, almost no aspect of it seems enticing, and it wasn’t part of my upbringing in any way that could be considered positive. So I simply never tried it. I can say that people distrust a person who doesn’t drink I think much more than ones who do, because we remember the terrible things the drinkers forget. These days it’s troublesome because it is now widely understood that inebriation voids a person’s ability to give consent, at least in the eyes of the law. Having a drunk person throw themselves at you, who then becomes furious when you deny them, is not what I would characterize as fun. If you are foolish enough to give in then you have exposed yourself to the danger of the morning perspective. Not, by any calculation, ideal.

Additionally, I have faced every terrible event of my life completely sober. I’m not sure if alcohol would have softened the experiences. Regardless, I have experienced every moment of pain and grief with clarity. I’m not sure I could recommend it…

On a few occasions people have accused me of thinking myself better than them for being a teetotaler. Since we are all friends here, I admit that I do. Although, deep down, I believe I’m better than most people regardless of their status concerning drink. >:D

My vices are other things. Things that you could help me acquire by way of supporting my work. Links above will aid you in that venture. I certainly hope you will contribute to my sin. Anyway, I will see you on Friday hopefully. I must have blood drawn in the morning which is always a very traumatic experience. I hope your tomorrow is better than mine will likely be.

28 Comments

Drinking makes live entertainment better. The hundreds of shows and concerts I’ve been to with everyone screaming the lyrics and hugs after every circle pit, it’s an intense wave of everyone feeling the same emotions together.

In the very specific circumstances that these two are in, a limited amount of alcohol can logically work as a social lubricant. I’m saying this as a lifetime tea totaler myself, purely because I know the broad strokes of how alcohol works.

The “pleasurable” part of alcohol consumption is actually one’s inhibition unit being weakened or shut down, producing a feeling of freedom. In the circumstances presented in this comic page, the only thing actually causing them to be quiet is their inhibitions causing them to second guess speaking about whatever comes to mind. That said, too little inhibition in a situation like this makes “public indecency” something that is too easily produced, so there is a limit there, too.

Returning to the alcohol talk, issues will logically occur if one drinks to excess or while depressed. One’s inhibitions are never the issue when one is experiencing depression, and alcohol itself is a depressant style of drug, so drinking to excess in search of the “happiness” that alcohol “brings” is doomed to fail. But people, having experienced the feeling of freedom still seek it out without understanding what they are doing, which is why “Depressed Drunkard” has been a staple for so long.

I have also never been truly drunk. Only a few times have I been even tipsy. I can understand the appeal of alcohol but I have a problem with alcohol culture. When I got tipsy, it was with a roommate during lockdown, playing Left 4 Dead. It was a way to deal with the stress of that time. It was fun. But the culture of drinking, of relying on a buzz to enjoy being alive, to use alcohol as a crutch to engage with people, to use alcohol as the excuse for why you’re being a raging clown, is just a blight. It’s like weed; you smoke a little on the weekend while you watch a movie with your partner, sure. You get high as a kite on a regular basis and so your brain starts to fry? I don’t really want to hang around with you.

I live in a country that is so completely plagued by alcohol abuse that I have the utmost respect for anyone who abstains. Myself, I drink very little nowadays because I hated who I was when I drank. I did stupid, unsafe things, and it brought out the worst of my emotions if anything was wrong. It takes strength and courage to avoid drinking in this world and I’m astounded that more people don’t look at what alcohol does to people (I would say 1/4 of my friends/family have a drinking problem here) and make a decision to leave it out of their life.

Alcohol is firmly embedded in my country’s social culture, to the point where teetotalers have to put up with their abstention being a topic of conversation at every social occasion. (I am not a teetotaler, but have only a little at any given time these days.)

More to the point – where is the bread? You’d’a thunk maybe God Be With Brew might make a whole thing out of the bread at the table?

I reason that alcohol, since it removes the inhibitions that stop us from doing whatever it is, for whatever reason, shows us as we truly are, good or bad. Those who use it as an excuse to do terrible things have always wanted to, but use “being drunk” (or high or whatever) as a scapegoat.

For me, it quietens the voice of anxiety. I can generally better hold and keep track of discussions, and have the confidence to sing at karaoke (not necessarily the skill, mind; I’m not delusional).

Alcohol was never my thing, but for me when I was drunk it was like watching an old 8mm film and blinking too quickly while trying to watch.

There are various levels of partaking in alcohol, with “drunk” just being one level down the line from “totally sober.” You can be worse than “drunk” or better than “drunk” but it relies on your self-control (which is the real problem with alcohol).

Some people are fine with drinking a little and never getting drunk, and some just have to get raging beyond drunk to enjoy it. Also, the more alcohol, the more exposed your core personality is. So drunk people can be either really entertaining, nice or flat out a-holes. As most people who drink find out, the majority is a bunch of a-holes.

Anyway, I don’t drink unless it’s a social occasion. Even then, I maybe drink just enough to start to feel it, but I haven’t been “drunk” for over 30 years. So there is that.

See, I think alcohol has more to do with personality. I’ve spent a lot of time not drinking and I’ve tried drinking. Drinking is more fun and useful the older I get. But I’ve been lucky; there’s not much problem drinking in my family. My parents drank, but not usually to excess. I don’t feel the urge to drink excessively. I’m happy with a couple drinks.

I think it’s kind of like an allergy. I have breathing problems around grass seeds. Some people can’t even be around a PB&J sandwich. Some people have a problem with alcohol. But the social focus on alcohol in America is out of control and moves drinking from an optional activity that might be fun or disarming to practically required and weird if you don’t. It would be interesting to see what life would be like if alcohol and drinking really was just an option and not a constant.

For a funny moment when you said you were going to have ‘blood drawn’ my mind went ‘Wait what? who in-comic is getting That injured? …Reggie what did you Do?!’

I don’t drink and never have. Simply put, the idea of losing control over myself terrifies me so much that even though I know drinking just a little won’t do much, I don’t want to even chance it. My solution to social events where everyone is drinking is to simply not be there (it helps that I don’t really get invited to such things anyway). Getting drunk and drinking culture is something I’m perfectly happy to just not experience and no one’s given me grief about this.

I might have 1 or 2 drinks with friends, but- getting [very drunk] has never appealed to me.
I tried getting drunk a couple of times, in my high school years, + found myself: [feeling like I had to be entertaining to everyone], or [feeling very insecure].
It’s not an activity for me, but others can do it if they like.

Thinking you’re better than people for not drinking and then begging for money.

Id rather be a drunk than some asshole who basically whines every single time they post on here.

What’s it going to be tomorrow? Another illness? Some other nonsense? Maybe you’re feeling sad?

All you do is complain.

It’s my blog, if I want to be a crybaby I will. You come back, month after month trying to scold me for telling my story. This is an account of my life as much as anything else, it makes sense that I would record my feelings and experiences. You’re the one who can’t seem to walk away. Desperately begging me to validate your existence by noticing you.
Maybe you can have a drink and think about how much better you are than me. XD

News flash: you’re allowed to skip the commentary if you don’t care for it. I just cannot comprehend people who keep on reading something seemingly for the sheer joy of outrage. With the mass of content out there, it really shouldn’t be hard to find something more to your taste. If you’re not exactly enthralled by what Jackie has to say, well, no one said you had to be. But remember, this is HIS soapbox.

I like the idea where the Latina goblin Evrina’s boobs get slightly bigger with every scenario she shows up in due to dummy Jesus being a blockhead.

My uncle introduced me to the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester when I was, oh, twelve, fourteen, something like that. Hornblower turned out to be a character I identified with a *lot*: he was intelligent, sensitive, and introverted. And in at least one of the books, the author notes that Hornblower disliked getting drunk because he detested the feeling of losing control of himself. I hadn’t had any alcohol yet at that age, but I didn’t like the sound of that feeling, so it kind of stuck in my head.

I have been solidly drunk a few times in my life — very few — and I decided I *didn’t* like that feeling very much, so I don’t bother getting drunk. Oddly enough, I never had a hangover the next day. Some quirk of my metabolism, apparently genetic. I found out much later that my mother had never had a hangover, either, until she got into her early 50s. Go figure.

I don’t mind having an occasional beer or a glass of wine with dinner, those don’t bother me. I just don’t do them very often, partly because I’m not social enough to do any social drinking (my wife and I are both homebodies), partly because I can’t afford them, and partly because of my lack of interest in getting drunk. Oh, and mostly because I never learned to like the *taste* of alcohol; about the only alcoholic drinks I like the taste of are ones that have enough other stuff in them to hide the taste of the alcohol. Strawberry margaritas, that sort of thing.

Everybody says,”Try it, you might like it.” Yeah, and if I did, I might like it a loooooooot…. I might go from a non drinker to an alcoholic basically instantly, and I have health issues that probably wouldn’t be helped by that. Also, I sleep terribly because of insomnia. You see someone passed out drunk, You probably feel bad for them. Me, I’m insanely jealous of how they’re sleeping so soundly.

I have always had an addictive personality and was aware of it early on, so a big part of why I never started was the fear I would never stop. In the end it has extended my life because if I had been a drinker there’s a good chance the antibiotics they had to give me from my original foot infection would have caused my liver to fail because they were so strong.

But damn, I wish they had a non-alcoholic version of that cinnamon stuff I could try in Dr. Pepper. I already put Atomic Fireballs in there sometimes.

Drinking doesn’t help much with insomnia and can actually make it worse. The problem with having a drink (or several) to get to sleep is that you tend to end up wide awake again and not very well rested as soon as you sober up.

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