Do you know an Alcoholic?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Apr 25 2007, 08:51 AM) [snapback]429663[/snapback]</div>

I guess I now know an alcoholic.

 

Sometimes that first coach tends to be almost God-like in the eyes of a boy. I had a band director like that for six years. He was decisive, disiplinarian, saw things black-and-white. Love to say "mathmatics is beautiful - it's either right or wrong - so is music". As we got older, we realized even music and mathmatics had grey areas.

As time when on, it turns out this band director among other things, had a serious drinking problem. The band would play a number and a player could commit a relatively trivial mistake, he would halt and shriek at the offender, virtually impaling with a lighting bolt. The only other person that could throw a fit that intense was a guy exploding at his boss to the point employees in the next room thought he had a weapon.

This ended up to being a civics lesson - at first he seemed like a Bob Knight - the benevolant tyrant. For that to work - you better be right at least 99% of the time - he was not. A drum major tried to get a girl to stop taping her foot, and the band director erroneously thought he was getting fresh. In a psycho tandrum, screamed at him in front of the band he could leave. The drum major called his bluff and did not show up for days - principal had to beg him to come back.

The band director's stature declined. A WWII vet, he ended up as a tyrant no better than the ones he fought.

 

I'm a recovered alcoholic. Not recovering. recovered. AA denies that an alcoholic can ever recover, but they are wrong. I was an alcoholic from my early teens (if not earlier) until my mid-twenties, when I quit drinking. I was recovering for many years, knowing that I could not touch alcohol or I'd be likely to fall off the wagon. In my early 50's I drank a glass of wine while in Spain, to see how it would affect me:

I liked the taste, but not the way it made me feel. I did not feel the urge to drink another glass. Since then I've had perhaps half a dozen glasses of wine and two beers (over the course of about 8 years). The two beers were on my last trip to Mexico, on two successive nights, because I wanted to taste the Mexican beers on account of their reputation. Those two beers are the only alcohol I've had since returning from Spain, about 5 years ago. And, while I enjoyed the taste, I had no urge to drink another.

I am completely recovered. I can now have a drink if I want to, but I don't want to. I even have a bottle of cooking sherry for marinating fish, and I have no temptation whatsoever to drink any of it. The alcohol evaporates before I eat the fish.

I have known other alcoholics than myself, but they are all dead.

 

Addictive behavior runs in my family. My sister has been both alcoholic and drug addict. I skirted the edges of alcoholism myself. Any drinking I did never impacted my job or relationships, but if I hadn't cut back when I did it's very possible it could have got worse.

Now I only have very occasional beer. Like one every couple months.

 

ok now imagine growing up with delta flyer's band director in your home, except he wasn't afraid to physically harm you.

and as is typical for a child growing up in an alcoholic home, i excelled in my studies to take attention away from what was going on. i searched for anything that would take away that anger, that pain. i found some things that worked but never did let myself get dragged too far down that path. it hit me what i was doing, that i was letting the statistics tell the story of my life before it even happened, and i began my slow march to prove them all wrong. and i live with the anger and the pain, they are just more scars to remind me where i come from and what i'm walking away from.

 

OK, on three....group hug for galaxee!
Your strength should be an inspiration to us all.

 

Congratulations to everyone brave enough to admit to alcoholism. Now, my turn.

Drum roll

I am completely addicted to - Melitta 100% Premium whole bean Colombian coffee! Take that away and life is not worth living.

(And no, Melitta is not paying me anything for this)

 

I dated a woman that every time she would want to kiss her breath smelled like stale alcohol ewwwww!

 

Definitely a hug to you galaxee. I admire people who overcome adversities in their life and become stronger because of them.

I had a two year relationship with a man who was a high functioning alcoholic. He held an incredible job at Universal Studios and was raising three kids on his own. Even though he HAD to have his scotch every night, he was still a wonderfully warm, charismatic man. The scary thing is though when you're with someone who is an alcoholic, you begin to drink more than you normally would. And you begin to see that the alcohol means more to them than anything or anyone else ever could. I eventually broke up with him because of this. He died suddenly two years ago from a massive coronary. He was only 49 years old.

 

Rant enclosed....

Let me echo some semi alcohol-related sentiments. We've recently had an experience with drug experimentation at middle school.

If you have kids in the public school system...Listen up!
Times have changed....Zero Tolerance in our schools could cost you Thousands of $ if your kid happens to make a bad choice, (who of us hasn't made bad choices?)

One father told me that he is not nearly so concerned about his child being physically harmed at school as he is of his child being suspended or expelled for saying the wrong thing, or looking at someone in the wrong way. Did you know your kid can't even have an aspirin in their backpack?

Our children simply have no experience with friendly teachers suddenly turning into adversarial investigators, all while maintaining the demeanor of a friend. Based on the over-reactionary climate in our schools, parents may want to tell their children what what I have recently told my son:

Under no circumstances are you to talk with a principal, social worker, psychologist or police officer about any non-academic matter related to information about yourself or another student. DON'T SAY ANYTHING! Tell them that you will only talk with them about these matters after talking with your parents. If they insist on pursuing the matter, tell them you will gladly take an "F," or go to detention, or take a suspension, or go to jail, but you will not talk until you talk with your parents. Tell them you "Take the 5th."

Also, don't sign anything. NOTHING. Tell them you have to talk to your parents first. Schools have been known to have students sign waivers of their rights to hearings.

And don't consent to a SEARCH of anything. NOTHING. You have no idea what they may find in, your locker, your purse, your books. Officials may find a screwdriver and infer that you were about to break into a safe or stab a student. Aspirin or any medication found on a kid is immediate charge for Expulsion from school. Tell them you will not consent to anything until you talk with your parents. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Above all, stay cool. There's no need to become upset or angry. It will be used against you!

 

It was 21 years without a drink for me on December 21, 2006.

I used to indulge in various addictive substances . I no longer have that desire to. IMHO, my life is better without those types of things.

I am sure this is not the way to make a point - with the following comparison, but get over the sexual implications and smart aleck responses and think about this...

Monkeys socialize by grooming each other. Why do humans need to socialize with alcohol or other intoxicating substances?

 

I want to congratulate Daniel for beating the odds and cease the cravings for alcohol.

I also feel for Galaxee for growing up with alcoholics.

My experience of having a alcoholic band director does not compare to your experiences.

 

I have a question:

Those whom have had bad experiences with alcoholism, would you think going back to prohibition is a good idea?

After all, it seems to me, that for every "responsible" drinker, there is one whose life suffered in some way due to alcohol. Is it worth it, to keep it legal, simply for that other 50%?

 

I would not ban alcohol, since there are quite a few decent wines out there (example, Chateau neuf du Pape)

I would ban tobacco, along with commericials, reality TV and Donald Trump. (By the way, for a long time I thought that it was the losers on his show that were forced to become his apprentices)

 

i feel your question is kinda heading in my direction, squid. and that's cool.

look, while there about 15 million ways i could change the formative years of my life to exclude the alcoholism and other negatives... no, i wouldn't change them. people have free will. and if it's not alcohol, it'll be something else. yes, i enjoy drinking now and again (to a lesser extent now than when i was younger) despite what alcoholism has done to me. because it's not the alcohol that did it- it's the person.

it's the person, the angry shallow man, the one who only felt superior while dumping a lifetime worth of emotional and physical scars upon a child, who was the problem. even when he wasn't drinking, he was an evil sob.

really, i wouldn't trade my experiences. i've made some bad adaptations, yes. i shouldn't be this angry/bitter, and i shouldn't be sleep deprived with post-traumatic dreams anytime something reminds me of the past. but i am a survivor. i've learned how to live through the worst. it makes the other stuff that seems like it would be insanely hard... not so horrible.

 

I grew up with an alcoholic father who at one point told my brother and I that he "would have been just as happy not having kids at all". Nice thing to say to your kids who are already starved for your attention.

Dad was not a "good" drunk; he started off by being amused by his witty, slurred comments, then quickly degraded to a more morose, bitter, devious phase where he could be quite cruel. I hated him for most of my developmental period and beyond, and felt it was extremely unfair to my mother. However, later events in my own life made me see things through a different lens, and while I have never agreed with his choice for how he handled his unhappiness, I certainly understood it more and came to terms with it. We enjoyed something of a more "normal" father-son relationship the few years before he passed away, and I am grateful for that. I would recommend anyone having gone through something like this to make your peace (however you may define that) before the person leaves this mortal coil - it's a cliche, but the closure was very important for me.

My dad was a great role model for me; of what kind of a father and husband NOT to be. It was a lesson painfully gained, but therefore more ingrained, and, quite perversely, I thank him for it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Apr 25 2007, 03:54 PM) [snapback]430046[/snapback]</div>

It's more like buckshot into everyone's direction!

Seriously though, with all these stories, is keeping it on the shelves really worth it?

OR, here's an idea, how about making alcohol and tobacco products that require licensed use by characters of sound body and mind, sort of like the ideal for gun control.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bshef @ Apr 25 2007, 01:28 PM) [snapback]429915[/snapback]</div>

The ironies in life. Can't have aspirin, but they can put them on Ritalin for "not fitting in."