Success and the Personification of alcohol
It was touch and go there for a while last evening. I discovered Gedny's Zinger dill pickles are fantastic for stomping cravings; they're wickedly spicy-hot and burn like a shot of cheap whiskey on the way down, making it feel as though I actually did a shot of cheap whiskey. I then got the bright idea to pour a glass of Devils Spit Bloody Mary mix on the rocks, with another pickle spear and some of the juice to take that heat up a notch, and it worked! Craving kicked through the witching hour!
I was thinking about my "relationship" with alcohol and found myself not liking the word "relationship" in conjunction with my alcohol use. It implies that alcohol is some kind of sentient being, and of course, it's not. I don't have a "relationship" with almond milk, or green tea, why should I claim one with vodka?
Personification of alcohol gives it more power. It's just a thing, a non-entity that's been glorified in some areas of the world, and hardly thought of in other areas of the world. It's not a demon or a god or a best friend or a seductress or a murderer. It doesn't have a "grip" on me...it doesn't even have hands.
Stripping away the personification of booze puts my compulsion to drink in a new, more accurate light. What's going on here is not a battle against a bottle - it's a shape shifting from one who imbibes to one who abstains. What I'm doing is shedding a lifetime of conditioning, liberating myself from an action that I was raised up to believe was cool and normal and if you couldn't hack it, you were at worst a wimp or at best no damn fun.
Booze in my mid-western world was more of a philosophy, or a religion than a "person".
We didn't drink because of some horrible trauma. We didn't drink to get numb. On the contrary, We drank to amplify, to ratchet up the good times to be better times to be best times. (Although that was a balancing act - especially in later years - sometimes the best times took a turn for the worse). We drank because our German forefathers claimed a chunk of Wisconsin as prime hops-growing-beer-brewing real estate, so subsequent generations were baptized in Old Milwaukee and reared on brats par-boiled in PBR.
Anyone from this area knows what it means to Swing with the King, knows which gut-rot brew would give you the quickest buzz, the worst farts, the worst hangover. In my little town, the main drag ended at three huge Anheuser-Busch malt towers painted to look like Busweiser Beer Bottles, the mission statement of which we all had memorized early on; "This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price." I remember being enormously impressed that my brother T could recite this on command so I practiced it every day until I could, too.
The town painted over those bottles last year, finally after decades thinking it was awesome, deciding it probably wasn't the best image to portray to the world. There was a huge outcry from the town, "How could they?! It's part of our history!"
I was thinking about my "relationship" with alcohol and found myself not liking the word "relationship" in conjunction with my alcohol use. It implies that alcohol is some kind of sentient being, and of course, it's not. I don't have a "relationship" with almond milk, or green tea, why should I claim one with vodka?
Personification of alcohol gives it more power. It's just a thing, a non-entity that's been glorified in some areas of the world, and hardly thought of in other areas of the world. It's not a demon or a god or a best friend or a seductress or a murderer. It doesn't have a "grip" on me...it doesn't even have hands.
Stripping away the personification of booze puts my compulsion to drink in a new, more accurate light. What's going on here is not a battle against a bottle - it's a shape shifting from one who imbibes to one who abstains. What I'm doing is shedding a lifetime of conditioning, liberating myself from an action that I was raised up to believe was cool and normal and if you couldn't hack it, you were at worst a wimp or at best no damn fun.
Booze in my mid-western world was more of a philosophy, or a religion than a "person".
We didn't drink because of some horrible trauma. We didn't drink to get numb. On the contrary, We drank to amplify, to ratchet up the good times to be better times to be best times. (Although that was a balancing act - especially in later years - sometimes the best times took a turn for the worse). We drank because our German forefathers claimed a chunk of Wisconsin as prime hops-growing-beer-brewing real estate, so subsequent generations were baptized in Old Milwaukee and reared on brats par-boiled in PBR.
Anyone from this area knows what it means to Swing with the King, knows which gut-rot brew would give you the quickest buzz, the worst farts, the worst hangover. In my little town, the main drag ended at three huge Anheuser-Busch malt towers painted to look like Busweiser Beer Bottles, the mission statement of which we all had memorized early on; "This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price." I remember being enormously impressed that my brother T could recite this on command so I practiced it every day until I could, too.
The town painted over those bottles last year, finally after decades thinking it was awesome, deciding it probably wasn't the best image to portray to the world. There was a huge outcry from the town, "How could they?! It's part of our history!"
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