TQ White II

So the statistics people come back with another stab at telling us not to drink alcohol. What a fucking bore. I wish they would just keep their moralizing bullshit to themselves.

It's always been obvious to me that alcohol is a poison (eg, I use it to kill covid19 virus all the time) that makes you sick (eg, 'hangover' is a euphemism for 'poisoned but will recover'). It's equally obvious that overdosing will kill you in myriad ways ranging from alcoholism to liver disease to various kinds of cancer.

By the way, pretty much everything else is poisonous on some level, too. Food is killing most (yeh, most) Americans more certainly and with greater life consequences than alcohol. At this moment obesity makes any consequence of alcohol you can name look like a good day.

There are two reasons I want them to shut the hell up. First is, Everyone already knows that drinking too much is bad for you, Captain Obvious. We know already. Stop harping. Not a single person on earth did or did not drink more or less because ten years ago they nuanced that X ounces a day is good/bad for you. No matter what they say, it doesn't kill you very fast and that's what matters.

Second, Drinking doesn't have anything to do with health because people do not care about health. They care about happiness. And these studies never give any credence to the fact that people hate being sober all the time.

Hate hate hate hate hate being sober all the time. Hate hate hate.

As well they should. Sobriety is a horrible state of being when done too often. You can tell me about that person you know who is cheerful and fulfilled without a drop or a toke. I will tell you that, when I met that person last time, I thought, Gad, what a drag. Seemed a bit dry and joyless.

Sure, people exist whose lives are awesome when sober all the time but they are a minuscule fraction, the order of magnitude of the population of monks and nuns, or world class chess players or other groups with esoteric characteristics.

Animals seek to avoid sobriety by eating fermented fruit and they don't even have to go to work or talk to their stupid boss or listen to Donald Trump (or Joe Biden for that matter). With actual intelligence comes a thousand additional reasons to set rationality and inhibition aside for a few hours.

I would love to see the study on the nasty effects of sobriety. Of the joyless engagement in a world of parties without drink. Of lives lived without the fumbling relaxation where the cares and interests of the day seem remote. Where you can't sit back and listen to your incredibly annoying relative or friend, sip on your drink and allow your disinhibited mind to fantasize about murder or abandonment or to feel, I just don't care very much because I love this gin.

And don't even get me started on the idea of all sexual encounters being sober. I shudder to imagine how much less sex people would have and how dry and awful it would be, and thereby how the actual enjoyment of the human condition would be nearly entirely eliminated.

I will reaffirm, as those who know me have heard many times before, humans naturally want to stop being sober. It is as natural and essential as sex, a good bowel movement or loving your grandchildren. I love to drink (and smoke and, if only I could access some, perhaps a little sneef now and again) and will do it on my deathbed, even if it reduces my time there.

Drinking is good and essential to the joy of life.