on alcohol

I hate alcohol.
I hate the physical impact it has, the loss of control, the staggering, the unintended expulsion of bodily fluids, the mess.
I once was asked to give a lift home to someone who had been drinking at a university event. I reluctantly agreed on the promise that she would not throw up in my car. She promised she would not throw up in my car. She threw up in my car. I still feel indebted to my amazing friend who cleared it up once I got home even tho he hadn't even come to the event and didn't know the other person at all - some people are incredibly lovely like that.

And that's one of my experiences of alcohol, that a person's best intentions can come to naught as the alcohol impairs our ability to judge just what we are capable of and what promises are not possible.

The lack of judgement is one of the things I rally against most. All those people who have got behind a wheel truly believing that they are capable of driving safely. The hundreds of lives turned upside down by that poor judgement.

And so I hate the mental impact, the way alcohol robs people of their ability to think clearly.

I hate the emotional impact alcohol has. The way it takes people away from me, having loosened a person's connection with themselves, and taken away their ability to connect with others. I kind of understand that this is the reason why most people consume alcohol in the first place - to numb the feelings so we don't have to be continually living with the doubts and fears and stress.

I hate the emotions it fuels. The bravado of just how many pints have been imbibed in a culture that extols excessive consumption. And in that same culture, where one in 10 people are ruled by the alcohol, rather than in charge of it, those feelings of guilt and shame that leads people to hide how much they have had.

I hate alcohol. But I love cake.