You had made yourself fully present to life and fully at ease within it. You weren’t oppressed by the past and you weren’t worried about the future. — Edmundson

A fool's paradise. — Wayfarer

No more than, say, playing a musical instrument in a band. Do you think it's always foolish to, by a special method, become temporarily at ease with life?

I've only gotten sick (really horrible hang overs) from wine. Some of it was good, some of it was rotgut. Didn't seem to make much difference. Never gotten sick from beer, gin, whiskey, rye... — Bitter Crank

Everyone says this kind of thing, including me. Whisky makes me depressed for days, wine is fine, and so on. But they say (and they would know) that the kind of alcohol you drink doesn't make any difference, that the difference is how much you drink, which is what varies when drinking different kinds of alcohol.

Do you really consider playing an instrument and drunkenness to be the same experience? Have you experienced either?

I commonly experience both, and no I don't consider them to be the same experience. That would be foolish. As I said in the OP, I consider them both to provide a way of keying in to the world, of finding a home in it. This is the feeling of losing oneself and becoming oneself at the same time that I was talking about.

As a soft ball Methodist faggot... — Bitter Crank

Contender for the first clause of the first line of your autobiography?

I think alcohol is a temporary shortcut to removing inhibitions. If you work on your inhibitions by addressing the reasons they exist, you shouldn't need alcohol to open up and 'be yourself'. — CasKev

Why do that if I can just have a bottle of wine? I regard the anxiety we are able to leave behind when drinking to be part of the human condition, or part of the condition of alienation that everyone experiences. That is, it's a society-wide phenomenon that is not amenable to self-help. Anyway, I don't think it's as simple as you make out, though I realize your description is the common sense one. As I've been trying to say, drinking is not merely the negative act of removing inhibitions, but is, or can be, a positive one: a choice to take up a different stance on life and the world.

Plus alcohol brings with it the risk of hangover, drunken mistakes, not to mention anger and depression in some people. — CasKev

And who wants to take risks, right?

Getting inebriated is not comparable to playing a musical instrument or other cultural pursuits. Sure, anything can be 'escapism' but alcohol changes your perception by altering your body chemistry. I don't want to come across as a wowser, I have enjoyed a drink since my 20's
- although as I write, I am signed up to a charity fundraiser called Dry July which requires abstinence for this month. And actually I feel measurably better for three weeks not having had a drink; I'm seriously considering staying off it. But what occurs to me is that if you want to have a drink, don't try and rationalise it as some life-altering event, because I'm sure that will only have one outcome, and it won't be a good one. Just have a drink ;-)

Getting inebriated is not comparable to playing a musical instrument or other cultural pursuits. Sure, anything can be 'escapism' but alcohol changes your perception by altering your body chemistry. — Wayfarer

I'm aware that the experiences are different, but they are comparable, in exactly the way I compared them. You suggested that becoming temporarily at ease with life is foolish. Or did you mean that doing so only under the influence of alcohol is foolish? If so, why?

But what occurs to me is that if you want to have a drink, don't try and rationalise it as some life-altering event, because I'm sure that will only have one outcome, and it won't be a good one. — Wayfarer

>:O Thanks, but I'm fine. I drink less than I used to and expect to drink even less in the future.

I expected the charge of attempting to dignify drinking more than it is due, and maybe I am, but really I think I'm just trying to look at it differently. And note that I'm not trying to justify my affection for drink. In English-speaking cultures drinking is often regarded as something shameful, or naughty (at least in middle-class circles), and I want to see past that, because I don't think there's anything to justify. I want to say that it's not a case of slipping weakly back to a habit or escaping into oblivion like a coward, as TimeLine believes. No: it's a way of life!

(This is TPF so I have to point out: the last sentence is not quite serious)

Well it's not bad faith if one is being authentic: they are opposites. On Sartre's model, it is the waiter more so that he finds to be in bad faith. — unenlightened

Although drinking may not involve acting, like the waiter play-acting the role of waiter, it could be seen to involve the avoidance of freedom and responsibility. In ceasing to worry, we cease to face up to the need to take up a stance on a life that has no transcendent meaning. At least, that's the way that drinking might be thought to be inauthentic: when we drink, we deceive ourselves for a while, and the mind-altering effects stand in for the taking on of a role. Even when thus inebriated, we know and can talk about our life projects, the problem of freedom, and so on, and yet it's as if we're talking about them as observers, unwilling for a time to grapple with them directly.

But it's this wry, sceptical, removed stance on our anxious selves that I like about drinking. Although @Moliere is surely right to point out that not everyone is like this with alcohol.

I expect the prigs of TPF to tell the rest of us how contemptible they find such indulgence — jamalrob

Well, if you already know what I will tell you, what's the point of me saying it? :s

No point at all, Gus! :)

Or did you mean that doing so only under the influence of alcohol is foolish? If so, why? — jamalrob

Because it's not real. We're relying on artificially altering your experience, because we can't face it straight up. Surely Our Lady Sophia would say that we need to learn to value ordinary experience, to see what is valuable in it, without artificial stimuli.

Between my last post and this one, I went out and did a 5 km run (after coming home from work). Now, after three weeks of not drinking, I am doing that run about 80% better than I was able to before. I have been lamenting the fact that I'm getting too old to run - I'm in my sixties now- but suddenly, I can again! Plus I have a feeling of inner clarity and verve. So I'm thinking when my sponsorship drive is over, I'm going to stay dry for a while.

Because it's not real. We're relying on artificially altering your experience, because we can't face it straight up. Surely The Lady Sophia would say that we need to learn to value ordinary experience, to see what is valuable in it, without artificial stimuli. — Wayfarer

Inebriation is real. Anything we do "by a special method" (to quote myself) is artificial, and to be artificial is not to be unreal. It is artificial to live in a city, to ride a bike, to read books. I don't think we reach some privileged natural state when we avoid chemicals. Playing an instrument no doubt alters our brain chemistry. And I think that drinking is part of ordinary experience.

Otherwise, good for you (not sarcastic). I've cut down too, though I can't see myself giving up completely.

'Inebriation - is real...




....precious....

Certainly one has to be careful over the long term.

While there are merits to remaining dry for a time, I'd say that your experience of feeling better is all one needs to point to in order to justify remaining dry for a time.

In particular, I highlight these two posts because I don't believe that altering body chemistry or artificiality are exactly correct descriptions of drinking, either.

When you run, for instance, you also alter your body chemistry. As you note, it feels very good. But the altering of body chemistry isn't a problem -- it's the manner in which you're altering your body chemistry (at this particular moment in your life) that's important. I'd suggest that drinking (in other particular moments) can feel just as good and right.

This is similar to claiming that alcohol delivers something artificial. But it's only artificial if you go into drinking believing it to be artificial. This kind of circles back to my point about how you relate to alcohol that matters most. Like any substance, depending on your relationship to said substance, that's the sort of psychological effects you should expect from it. The physiological effects will remain the same, but the experience depends on how you relate to it.

After all, there's no good reason to believe that pie is more artificial than alcohol, or gorging yourself on chocolate is more artificial than alcohol. These are far from needs, but indulging in them in the proper way can make your life fuller, as opposed to manufactured.


I force myself dry periodically because I know what you're talking about when you say it makes you feel better. And, on the whole, it sort of goes along with my notion of freedom to be able to let go of pleasurable things that are unnecessary, so I like to periodically give up drinking because of that. To break habituation. But, all the same, I don't think I'd call drinking artificial or somehow bad just because it alters my body chemistry. It just depends on where I am at in my life at the time, and how I'm relating to drinking that day.

(Y)

First note that by "anxiety" I mean it more in the general existential or Heideggerian sense than simply "social anxiety", although that may be an expression of it. I mean that in drinking we choose to drop this basic anxiety for a while and forget the paraphernalia of who we are, that we might have larger projects in life, that we will one day die and what are we going to do about it? — jamalrob

Indeed, I was also since I really have no time to think of those squeamish youths who are afraid of saying hello to a woman. In the Heideggerian sense, one feels existentially enslaved and the only relief they feel is exercising conditions that enable that momentary escape from their own reality because they are incapable of challenging the 'Master' or whatever it is in their life that has enfeebled their capacity to take control and responsibility. So, for instance, a man is being treated badly at work and so experiences a sense of alienation and while tolerantly silent as he sacrificially abandons his ego, releases his genuine feelings of frustration through drink and come home to beat his wife or children or someone out on the street because he cannot do it at work. The alcohol merely releases them from their moral obligations since they lose 'reason' due to being intoxicated, which is farcical since one is aware prior to drinking that that is exactly what will happen.

There are a great many people who are miserable in their reality and alcohol or drug consumption is the only relief that enables them to remove themselves from that, albeit temporarily, which in itself is cowardly since they are conscious of their choices to first escape but also cyclically continuing to return back to the numbness as it becomes a vicious habit, rather than actually making a direct change in their lives. There is also a fundamental conventionalism to the practice that I find irritating and that is not to say that I am a bore, but more like what Nietzsche said: The formation of a herd is a significant victory and advance in the struggle against depression. Doing what others do on specific days of the week merely illustrate that obedient habitus that only exposes your own powerlessness.

I just don't like the idea of abandoning my will and reason. If something is compelling me to escape, I will turn and face it, change it, fight it if I have to, but not hide from it. I don't want to be a das man as Heidegger said, or an inauthentic person. I would rather use the cognitive instruments to facilitate and nuture my Being.

It's a way of taking up an essentially humorous or playful stance on the world. — jamalrob

Go travelling. Do photography or paint something. Write. I don't have a problem with drinking, but getting drunk is hedonistic in that it is just too temporary a pleasure.

To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't actually tried any other wine besides chianti, except for champagne and I felt the effects of it for many days afterwards. When I was in Italy, I went to San Gimignano and had some chianti during dinner and I felt nothing. I pretend sipped a number of drinks in social settings but I never actually drank, so honestly I am not sure how it is made. Though viticulture is interesting since I love to garden.

Dude, the power of the ring was real (in the story). I think the image you want is the one where the Devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world for one act of worship. That's been used to describe the experience of alcoholics.

I regard the anxiety we are able to leave behind when drinking to be part of the human condition, or part of the condition of alienation that everyone experiences. That is, it's a society-wide phenomenon that is not amenable to self-help. — jamalrob

Not so true, at least in my case. I agree that the sense of alienation forms in most everyone, but that it can be removed with conscious effort.

I used to drink alcohol to loosen up and have fun. Unfortunately, during my very stressful marriage - a time when I was managing depression via medication only - social drinking turned into occasional binge drinking. This put further strain on an already difficult situation. As you probably know, antidepressants don't always mix well with alcohol, and one of these episodes led to a nearly fatal suicide attempt.

Despite this traumatic experience, like any good alcoholic, I tried to justify social drinking for several years. It continued to help me loosen up and have fun, but brought with it its share of problems.

It wasn't until I almost lost my current girlfriend that I realized the shortcut to loosening up wasn't worth the potential cost. But I wasn't willing to give up on having fun! So I went through a period where I consistently pushed myself past the boundaries of social discomfort. A big part of this involved eliminating self-judgment and judgment of others. With judgment removed, I felt that I could be myself - I could say and do the things I would when I was feeling a good alcohol buzz.

I'm not saying drinking alcohol is inauthentic, but it comes with cost and risk. And wouldn't you rather put in the work to be authentic all the time?

Everyone says this kind of thing, including me. Whisky makes me depressed for days, wine is fine, and so on. But they say (and they would know) that the kind of alcohol you drink doesn't make any difference, that the difference is how much you drink, which is what varies when drinking different kinds of alcohol. — jamalrob

Everyone says this kind of thing because their experience bears it out.

Alcohol is alcohol is alcohol, but there is other stuff in the bottle that varies enormously. Aging whisky for years in charred wood extracts various chemicals that you won't find in wine, gin, or beer. Fermenting grapes will contain a host of chemicals not found in whisky or beer, and so on.

Granted, how much alcohol one drinks (in whatever medium) will have effects quite apart from the medium.

But what occurs to me is that if you want to have a drink, don't try and rationalise it as some life-altering event, because I'm sure that will only have one outcome, and it won't be a good one. — Wayfarer

Most people self-regulate drinking and they don't go on to become alcoholics. Some people, however, don't/can't self-regulate well at all, and for these folks moderation in the use of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin--whatever intense pleasure-producing chemicals they try--just doesn't happen. Escalation is a given. Smokers tend to maintain the same level of tobacco usage over many years. It all has to do with the way various chemicals are metabolized and the way neurotransmitters work in a given brain.

Contender for the first clause of the first line of your autobiography? — jamalrob

Could be.

Religion, sex, drinking, pleasure, guilt... A fine mix.

I think the image you want is the one where the Devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world for one act of worship. That's been used to describe the experience of alcoholics. — Mongrel

The devil did come to mind, but I thought better of it.

(Y)

Smokers tend to maintain the same level of tobacco usage over many years. — Bitter Crank

Indeed, I used to smoke too. In fact I have quite an addictive personality, but I've managed to become less so over the years.

Because it's not real. We're relying on artificially altering your experience, because we can't face it straight up. Surely Our Lady Sophia would say that we need to learn to value ordinary experience, to see what is valuable in it, without artificial stimuli.

Between my last post and this one, I went out and did a 5 km run (after coming home from work). Now, after three weeks of not drinking, I am doing that run about 80% better than I was able to before. I have been lamenting the fact that I'm getting too old to run - I'm in my sixties now- but suddenly, I can again! Plus I have a feeling of inner clarity and verve. So I'm thinking when my sponsorship drive is over, I'm going to stay dry for a while. — Wayfarer

Artificial stimuli? What would artificial stimuli be -- alien-operated brain probes?

Is an alcoholic fast or a worthy cause natural or artificial? And what about old men running down the street after a long day at the office? Natural or artificial--the running and the office both? Someone might ask, "What are you running from and what are you running toward?"

I'm all in favor of exercising and worthy causes, maybe even spending all day in an office. (Though, office work can be fairly perverse. You should probably consider whether it's natural and authentic to be doing whatever it is that goes on in your office.)

What would artificial stimuli be -- alien-operated brain probes? — Bitter Crank

Well, mood-altering or mind-altering substances. I was a cannabis user all through my 20's and early 30's. I used to love getting high and listening to great music. Also had some amazing trips. Sounds so lame when you say it, but really did experience the clear light. So the impulse behind that was always 'getting high' in the sense of reaching a higher state. Off course as you grow up you realise that a lot of it is pseudo-profound, not truly profound, but it's very different to alcohol. (I mean, if all the 20 year olds were smoking dope instead of drinking, there would be zero street brawls.) Anyway I last smoked cannabis probably 12 years ago or so. I missed it for a long while but now it's not part of my life any more. (Have a look at The Paisley Gate.)

I discovered scotch about the time I married, late 20's. I drank scotch for a few years but i realised it could be serious trouble if you liked it too much so gave it up. But the last ten years or so, it's just been beer & wine - not huge amounts, but all the time. Like, get home from work, have a beer, or two or three, then a wine, or two or three. It adds up, and makes you fat and stoopid.

In respect of the philosophical point, though - yes, we have to 'alter our minds', but that is because they're mis-configured. They're not running properly. Getting that straight is 'praxis',

I drank quite a lot when I was young, and regularly throughout the years that I ran a contracting business. I think drinking is a form of self-medication; nothing more nor less. Likewise, so is drinking tea or coffee, and smoking tobacco or marijuana. The stronger drugs are more a way of life; a serious commitment (although alcohol and smoking and even coffee can become something like that). Over the last couple years I have almost entirely lost any interest in drinking, smoking tobacco or marijuana; but I still drink a little tea and coffee.

I drink tons of coffee too.

Outside of alcohol, I can't claim much experience with mood altering substances. The last time I had a couple of hits of cannabis ... 27 years ago, it was a bit too mind altering and I didn't like it. A bit too much and a bit too long. So that was the end of that. I had 1 and 1/2 bottles of beer last evening, and that was about as much as I can handle at this point. That second large cup of coffee in the morning isn't doing much for me either. The first cup is essential; the second is close to optional.

Our expectations of alcohol and drugs is somewhat constructed. Advertising prepares us to believe that drinking is very enjoyable, an essential ingredient for good times. Peer testimony performs the function of advertising for the whole range of street drugs. Word of Mouth works. We are led to believe that using drugs will give us intense measure and deep insight. Intense pleasure--sure--deep insight not too deep, not too often. As you said, its pseudo-profound.

Depending on which people one hangs around with, one might feel like a Mormon if one doesn't use any of the whizzy drugs available. (Mormons generally avoid alcohol, street drugs, coffee, tea, coca cola, etc.)

Consider how smoking and drinking have been portrayed in movies. The classic B&W movies of the 40s and 50s featured people smoking in a manner that was very seductive. The characters in Mad Men drank in a manner which the distilling industry must have loved--liquor in decanters on office credenzas, nice glasses, sometimes ice, sometimes straight up. The alcohol was consumed during work hours as if it were the most delicious thing on earth. It was the all-purpose-cure. If one was up, down, just bagged a new client, one's wife had just walked out, one had a bright idea -- about any thing was a cause to pour a drink.

I grew up in a house where there were nearly always filled cigarette boxes on the coffee table and filled decanters on the side-board. Everyone used to smoke everywhere - newsreaders would smoke on television. My father used to smoke while lecturing. (He died of lung cancer.) When I got my first-ever office job, circa 1986, people used to smoke in meetings. It's changed a lot in Australia but I've heard that it's still like that in China.

And, drinking IS enjoyable, no question. For that matter, so is cannabis, if it doesn't freak you out. But I'm having to learn to go without it. Next, I have to learn to stop talking about it. :-)

In addiction circles, they talk about drinking as being a form of self-medication. Typically with an addiction, it would be in reference to self medicating against depression or loneliness. To some degree, what you're talking about is self medicating against anxiety. I don't mean for that to sound judgy. I self medicate against starvation and dehydration several times a day. The problem with alcohol (and caffeine) is that we habituat to it if we use it too frequently. To get the best effects, you need to either drink infrequently or in increasing volumes. I tend to waste my alcohol consumption, by drinking small amounts frequently, and I barely feel an effect. At this point, a taste of beer is really more of a sentimental recollection of the feeling that you talk about, than an attempt to recreate the feeling itself.

Yeah, weed was definitely to self-medicate my crushing loneliness... oh why God did you make me too beautiful for this world? I should take up the guitar and write songs about it. I hear that it's pretty easy to learn to play pop songs.