My extended family all drank socially, no exceptions. I’m not a social person and alcohol can loosen me up a bit.
My drinking was private; wife didn’t drink but I would drink beer after work. For a few years, I was drinking a tall sixer every night, moving to mixed drinks for social occasions.
I drank for obliteration; each day was a tremendous load and at the end I wanted to quit feeling, quit analyzing, quit worrying.
For no particular reason, I just quit drinking. It’s a
[email protected] life and I was needing better. For years I didn’t drink at all and bought into the current doctrine that, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
Eventually, I learned that the popular wisdom was no more than just popular wisdom. For me, at least, alcohol is a choice that some people just won’t quit making.
I really enjoy a good glass of wine, but a second glass often makes me want to lay down when my digestion needs me upright. I suspect autism has something to do with the fact that I have little interest in run-of-the-mill wines, and wines I do enjoy cost more than I’m able to comfortably afford, so I find occasional joy in a self-limiting interest.
Beer repulses me usually. I keep a tall Bud in the back of the fridge for those rare occasions when I’m in the mood for a tomato beer, for which I actually use V-8, about 3:1. I enjoy it and then the bloat reminds me why I rarely do it.
My sons drink socially, but I never see them tipsy. A big hurdle for me was getting used to hanging out with them without a drink in my hand. Nowadays it is a non-issue for me, though I admit that I’ll nurse a single drink for an hour, signaling that Dad is in a party mood.
Even partial drunkenness is an ugly place to be, even the mildest hangover a convicting sermon on overindulgence.
But I strongly suspect that if alcohol were introduced today as a cleaning solution, it wouldn’t take two shakes of a lamb’s tail for the off-label benefits to be discovered. Human nature.