I’ve been debating whether to write this post for a few weeks now. It’s going to be a controversial one, but it needs to be said – and a little louder for the folks in the back. So please get comfy while I climb onto my soapbox about our saturated society for the next several paragraphs…
We live in a society that is saturated with alcohol: our culture is, on the whole, absolutely obsessed with getting drunk. But I know I don’t have to tell you this twice; it’s fairly common knowledge. Most people want to drink at every single event, plan their weekends around alcohol (happy hour, breweries, wineries, Super Stressful Bowl Sunday, you name it), and then, I guess, deal with the consequences on Monday morning. People, I get it: I, too, was stuck in that vicious cycle for an entire decade, all told. But what do you have to show for it, when you spend your entire life seeking out opportunities to drink?
I will pause to interject that of course I know individuals who are able to balance enjoying some weekend wine tastings with the rest of their lives, for example, and not let their drinking take over. But for many, especially those (like me) who are genetically predisposed to alcoholism, they are walking on very thin ice; they are playing with fire. It is incredibly problematic, troublesome, and tragic in my opinion, that our culture condones (and encourages) alcohol misuse and abuse. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, there are 28.8 million adults, ages 18 and older, living with alcohol abuse disorder. Yikes. And the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry writes that, “Nearly one-third of Americans’ alcohol consumption puts them at risk for alcohol dependence.” I’m not great at math, but neither of those statistics are very comforting…
To attempt to play devil’s advocate, I know (from experience) that there are many reasons for turning to the bottle: it provides a brief escape from the deafening din of daily life; it is a coping mechanism for many. Also, it is incredibly difficult not to continue on a path of self-medicating with alcohol when, let’s face it, it is the easiest of the substances to find: you can procure it at just about every CVS, gas station, grocery store, Target, and other store imaginable. It is a HUGE, inescapable part of our culture, dating back to the early settlers. But it has become a terrible problem – and it continues to be. It is all the more heartbreaking, having gone through active addiction, then fighting to claw my way out of the darkest moments of my life, because I know all too well what it feels like to be consumed by this disease; this obsession. But I also know what it feels like to have my life (somewhat) together; to wake up without the shame, hangxiety, and headaches. I know that change IS possible – and I wish more than anything that other people could experience that, too. However, our society is far from healing if it remains nearly impossible to find non-alcoholic beers (and certainly wines – those are completely MIA) at local restaurants; if asking for a mocktail menu is met with a somewhat puzzled expression; if it remains an elusive concept to go to a comedy show where everyone isn’t BYOB to the max.
As someone who is now fighting tooth and nail to recover (once again) in a linear fashion, it fills me with rage that we are still very much on a fast track to destruction as a society. I hate that alcohol is so easy to come by. This means that, when I made the decision to somewhat briefly drink again during “Augtember”, I was able to get my hands on that problematic poison without anyone asking any questions whatsoever; without any difficulty at all. I am now (and have been) back in my right mind and back on the straight and narrow – and am so thankful for that – but it is completely understandable why this is now all the more upsetting, having experienced such a setback almost three full years into my sobriety. Am I blaming the stores that sell alcohol? No, not necessarily. I have free will and it was my decision to drink again. I am the one who experienced the break with reality; the “oh, screw it” moment. But the problem remains: alcohol is far too easy to obtain, both for legal adults and those that are underage. It’s also deeply ingrained in us, from a young age for many (depending on how they were raised), that it’s acceptable to drink at every meal; every occasion; every milestone. Then we go away to college and it’s game over. That should be its own separate post, as there is much to be said about the horrors of binge drinking during the collegiate years and the lasting effect that can have, when, for at least four years, that is the center of one’s existence. Naturally that sets the stage for the rest of adulthood.
This is a vast understatement, but it’s incredibly difficult to heal from active addiction to alcohol when you are surrounded by it, constantly – and I don’t just mean at the aforementioned stores. Let me start by giving you a recent example to back this up, that is truly absurd. I just went on the hunt for some new running hats – and I can’t even shop online without being assaulted by HATS (that should be a simple enough quest) that are covered in a beer motif, like this one from Sprints, their “Save Water” cap. Oh, my goodness, really? I realize they are likely trying to be cute – but give it a rest, will you? I would like to be able to do some online shopping in peace, without being reminded that beer is such an omnipresent part of the running (and marathon) scene, just once.
So, as a saturated society, where do we go from here? And how do I, personally, manage the anger of living in a country where every single social setting involves alcohol? A world in which I can’t even accomplish some Sunday shopping without coming across running paraphernalia that makes light of drinking in excess – or reminds me that there are never any fun alcohol-free options waiting for me at the finish line? How do other recovering alcoholics heal from their own trauma lived out during their active addiction? And how do we deal with the burden of having to plan ahead each time we go to a restaurant, a party, a work event, literally anywhere – knowing that we will have to potentially “explain” and defend the decision not to have an alcoholic beverage in hand? I don’t have the answer, not even close. This is not one of those posts that ends on a happy note. We have such a long way to go as a society, in educating ourselves on the horrors of alcohol abuse, of alcoholism, of the destruction that this poison causes for people, before we can even begin to think about changing. But I hope, through social media; months like “Dry January”; quit lit by incredibly talented writers who clawed their way out from the darkest depths of drinking despair, just like me; and by perhaps more loud voices from the back, that we might one day live in a society that is no longer completed saturated by the pervasive (and dangerous) presence of alcohol.