Year Drinking Wagon Challenge for 2014
12-10-2013, 10:38 AM
I want to address some of the things said in the last few posts.
I don't think there is any problem with true moderate drinking -- as in, someone who has a glass of wine or two with dinner, not necessarily every day, and
very rarely more than that. To anyone like that, I have nothing to say about the subject.
While there are surely
some true moderate drinkers on the RVF, my very strong impression from reading this forum for a long time, and all sorts of different random threads in various parts of it, is that a
lot of guys here are fairly hard and consistent drinkers who
love drinking either for the sheer joy of drunkenness, or for the relief and relaxation it gives them, or both; and who drink a little more often, more persistently, and harder, than they might sometimes like to let on.
And that's not surprising. A lot of the guys here are trying to live an intense life that goes against the grain of the society that surrounds us. I think guys underestimate just how stressful an endeavor this is over time. It's not easy to try to have some gumption, to think for yourself, and to act as if you know better than most everyone around. Whether they know it or not, I think a lot of guys here use alcohol to relax and relieve the strain of a life they are attempting to live strenuously and according to their own lights.
Also, such men tend to be ones who crave the experience of interest, excitement and
spirituality. It is no mere coincidence that
spirits is another word for the sauce. It can indeed provide that experience -- sometimes the real thing when one is young, and increasingly a fading simulacrum as one gets older. And unlike some drugs that are fundamentally solitary and whose pleasure amounts to a concentration that closes off the rest of the world, the experience of alcohol at its best provides a spirituality that is social and that opens a man to the world. Is it a surprise that men who in many ways
walk alone are so intensely drawn to it?
The problem, as I've written before, is that as time goes on, alcohol increasingly becomes a false friend that ages and depresses men, and, rather than providing the interest and relief that they seek, coarsens their spirits and drains their lives of the true and great interests of the everyday.
For any man who has this kind of relation to alcohol, taking an absolute break for 1 year is a great and sometimes necessary idea, as well as a real challenge.
The challenge usually comes not from a physical addiction to the drug -- I don't think there are many guys here who are alcoholics in that way, though there are a few. Rather, over time, guys will find themselves thrown on their own devices and forced to find other ways to relieve their stresses and to find interest and spirituality in ways that are less crude and mechanical. As this process unfolds, there is often the temptation to fall back on something that seemed to provide these things in a reliable way. But it is by taking the challenge and going through the empty, fallow, or stressful times -- and also times of celebration and enthusiasm -- without any recourse to the crutch of alcohol, that a man can fundamentally change his relation to it and find better ways to face the world in a posture of relaxed and sustained interest.
Absolute abstinence for an extended period of time -- 1 year is a good minimum -- is crucial not because it's some sort of a fetish, or because having one drink will necessarily send you off on a life-ending binge. That's not the point. Rather, for those men who have developed the fraught and intense relation to alcohol that I speak about -- which I believe is true of many, many posters here -- the process of changing that relation and of throwing away the crutch takes time; it's not something that happens in weeks or sometimes even a few months.
You have to go through different seasons, times of year, times at home and away, with no drinks whatsoever, to really internalize the idea that the crutch is not there and you better figure out other ways to relax, or be social, or be interested.
And yeah -- I've seen examples of guys who have become true moderate drinkers
after going through this process and that can sometimes be fine. But the long work of the wagon has to come first...