This is the first of what I hope to be a long, brutally-honest continuing series on alcohol and drinking.
I have a drinking problem.
A lot of what I do in the name of health and a lot of what I suffer from, health-wise, are most likely related to my consumption of alcohol, mainly beer. And I usually ignore, side-step, or cover up the issues. Lately (over the last few years) I have tried to be more honest and to address it head-on, in some cases even in this blog. I have a few earlier posts that are pretty honest. Some examples of my side-stepping are as follows. The first time I ever realized that I was getting out of shape was in the mid '90's and I decided to start eating less and running every day. I remember at the time that I wanted to select behavioral changes that would allow me to leave my beer-consumption intact. A few years ago when I tried my first Whole30 Challenge I couched it as overall health improvement but it really was an excuse to try to quit drinking for 30 days without calling it that. Any time I've tried to strictly observe lent it's really been about not drinking for 40 days.
My health problems in no particular order are asthma, high blood pressure, persistent allergy symptoms and a host of digestive issues. These come from leaky gut and possibly SIBO (will be testing for this soon). These come largely from my decades-long daily drinking of beer and sometimes Irish Whisky. I don't abuse much else.
I started drinking in college as a social lubricant which then became a way to overcome social anxiety (or mask it) which has now become a way to overcome or mask existential anxiety. I live, I feel, I fear, I love, I am in pain, I blunt myself. I routinely batter the edges. This habit started with about two or three units a night and has gradually and consistently grown to five or more over the last 30 some years. Hardly ever more than ten but seldom less than five.
Parts of this blog have been a gradual acceptance and growing honesty about this problem and THAT I need to do something about it and just what to do and how and how often and when and where and why.
Unlike pregnancy, I don't think alcoholism is on a Boolean scale. Either you are or you aren't pregnant and I think conventional wisdom would say the same thing for alcoholism but I really think otherwise. It's an infinite and analog thing. Many would say either you are or you aren't and if you are you need to quit entirely by way of some 12 step program in which you surrender any notions that you have any control. This has helped many but it does not resonate with me. That said, I think a quest for moderation might also be doomed to fail. AA gets all the press and is the default setting for most on the issue but I really think the truth is silent and is somewhere else.
I don't know if I'm an alcoholic but I am certainly dependent on alcohol. I don't think I'm addicted because the times that I do take a break are not difficult for me other than mentally. I don't get DUIs or make a fool of myself on social media or in public but that may just be because I don't use social media and don't go out and certainly don't drive to or from a drinking session. Not useful to think of things in this way.
I do hide my consumption and I have blacked out.
What I'd like to do here is lay it all out and maybe come up with a strategy. Or at least some clarity.
Last night I had 7 beers. I did about the same the night before. I also had a nip from a brandy bottle.
I think the most important first things for me would be to understand what alcohol appears to be to me and to understand my relationship with it. Messaging is important. Messaging coming into my brain and messaging leaving it.
I am a pretty good BS detector but I think alcohol got a free pass with me for a long time. That is starting to change. Whereas I used to think otherwise, I now think alcohol is mostly bad and damaging. It is nearly universally understood that moderate drinking is healthy but I am now starting to question this and suspect that the health benefits are coming from something else and are enjoyed EVEN THOUGH moderate drinking occurs. Put another way, it's easy for me to imagine a teetotaler who's very sick and a heavy drinker who's not because of other factors.
I'm not going to demonize alcohol and drinking. It's my own behavior and understanding of it and the things around me that are of interest. It's a behavior pattern and thinking pattern that are dangerous, not the drink per se.
I want to get at the behavior and thinking patterns.
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