I have a very strange relationship with alcohol. Firstly I hate it- I hate it because of its effects (it makes me even more of a reckless/thoughtless/sadistic/nilihilist cunt than I when I'm sober), I hate it because of its side effects (only started getting proper hangovers when I was 19, only started getting real-kill-yourself hangovers in my early 20s despite, overall, drinking less), I hate the culture that surrounds it-> if you think binge drinking in Britian, the USA and Canada are bad- it pales it comparision here. There are bars that serve until 6-7am, people in NZ only GO OUT at about 11pm-1am, usually after a solid 2-3 hours drinking at home. I mean alcoholics are alcoholics and NZ alcoholics are more of the same, but the binge drinking is fucked...I know men and women who are really intelligent, articulate, witty, observant and analytical people who are capable of drinking 100+ standard drinks (1.2 European Standard Drink = 1 NZ standard drink too, I'm talking the equivilant of 9-12 bottles of wine without loss of consciousness (complete anmnesia blackout trainwreck, but still functioning enough to keep buying drinks). That's like a chipper who, although no physically dependant on heroin, still needs 250mg of pure (homebake) heroin to catch a nod....it's just fucked.
Yet I started drinking very early, to be perfectly honest, I was one of the above mentioned chronic binge drinkers- I could drink 2.5-4 bottles of spirits by myself by the time I was 17. As I also was heavily abusing opiates and muscle relaxants at the time (making me even more of a fucking shambolic mess when I did get OTP), by the time I did my final round of exams I was opiate dependant and a highly functioning alcoholic (who drunk 3-4.5L 10% wine a day).Yet I got clean off the opiates, went to university, moderated my drinking at first and then after a certain point (about 1.5 years into my degree) I just said fuck it and went back to my alcoholic ways, though heavily toned down due to my integration into a beer drinking group (drinking a 24 pack a day is bad, but it as as bad as draining a goon sack every fucking day) but the behaviour was basically the same. I have quite serious anger control problems that I do a really good job at managing- most people consider me anxious, but laid back...not as explosively violent- but that all goes out the window when I drink. I got beaten up a bunch of times, I beat up a bunch of people, I was banned from bars, fuck I threw up in the icebucket behind the bar and then got in a fight with the bouncer who told me to leave. Inside teh bar. I can fight, I've boxed much of my life, but I'm a middle weight, these days, probably lighter but these were two fucking huge islander super heavy weights, one of whom was obviously on meth, in a dark, enclosed environment, with double vision, I decided that I could take these guys and preemtively bashed one with a barstool before being dragged out and having the shit kicked out of me in the parking lot. Didn't feel a thing, went to burger king who refused me service because I was bleeding on their floor.
So yeah, I got really into my drinking. Then I just quit. I took acid with a mate of mine, we were planning to trip out at his place as his flatmate was out at some party- then the party shows up. It was the first time I had seen people who drank like me while on acid...it was disgusting. It reminded me of the 'specials needs' kids at my primary schools, drooling and slurring and craining their necks, writhing, speaking in this mongoloid version of English. I never drunk 'for teh taste' or any of that shit, I drunk to get
FUCKED UP BOYEEE and about half way through my second year I stopped getting wasted, which pretty much = I stopped drinking completely. My only 'relapse' (if you could call it that as I never intentionally quit as such, I just stopped and have no intention/desire to ever get drunk again) was when I briefly was sleeping with a very high-functioning alcoholic- didn't realise until I took a sip of her morning glass of gingerbeer the first night I slept over to cure my morning dry mouth and gagged from the amount of whiskey in it (and my favoured spirit is/was bourbon, so I like the dark spirits). But that only lasted like a month or so, mainly because she was a drunk anmd I was a stoner.
I think I may well have just replaced my excessive alcohol intake with excessive cannabis intake (which I enjoy much more than alcohol and has fewer physical side effects- not necessarily from a health point of view, but weed ain't never made me piss blood or vomit bile is all I'm saying) which I have gradually moderated over the last 5 years or so to what I deem to be a 'managable' level. I ain't stoned all the time, but I get stoned most days and if I do get stoned I'm probably gonna smoke anywhere from 3-8 huge 0.5g spliffs and make an evening of it with a few friends. So I suppose I just have displaced my alcohol abuse with cannabis abuse....but fuck man, you have no idea how much better I am for it. So I stare at walls way too much than is probably healthy, but it's better than being in prison because I did something completely fucking mental while drunk.
I really can't emphisise how destructive the effects of alcohol are- I mean, I've taken PCP, I've abused the shit out of Ketamine, I fucking overdosed on DXM (or 'plateau sigma' if you're a sadomasocist), I once took over 150mg of zopiclone in one sitting, I've used a torch to protect myself from DPH spiders but seriously, the top 100 stupid things I've done in my life have been 90% alcohol related. If I had not made the decision to stop drinking when I was in my early 20s and completely lose the tolerance, stomach or inclination to drink I reckon that there would be a good 80-95% chance that I would be in prison over some shit.
Hell, pretty much everyone that I know who has been done for possession of anything has only been searched because they were spotted doing something stupid while drunk in a public place.
Alcohol is an evil drug. I mean, this may seem completely delusional coming from a junkie (and smoker
), but alcohol is one of the very, very few drugs that I believe is truely evil. PCP is dangerous in the wrong hands, morphine is a horribly addictive drug, but that is more a reflection on the user than the drug. The only positive effects og alcohol are replicated by benzos/barbs, the main effect of alcohol is to make otherwise intelligent people appear and behave as if they were mentally retarded. PCP may mimic schitzophrenia to some extent- but being schitzophrenic for 12 hours is interesting, being braindamaged for 12 hours is not.
