Total loss of control. That’s how I’d describe my drinking days. Not only did I have no agency when I was drunk, I felt controlled and manipulated. It gives me the “ick” just thinking about my former self. I couldn’t do anything social without alcohol, not even call a friend. It eventually seeped into every action and thought, directly or indirectly. A cheap can of beer was behind the wheel of my life, driving me to places I didn’t want to go, frequently picking up cocaine along the way. The nights usually ended with a skid and a tremendous thud, sometimes with me losing my pants in the crash.
Loss of control takes many forms:
Speech – Slurring might be the least sexy thing you can do. Your credibility is annihilated once you’ve lost the basic function of your tongue. And it’s not just how you speak; it’s what you say. “Drunk man’s tongue, sober man’s mind” isn’t quite true. Sure, a stray, fleeting thought from the dark corners of your brain might slip out, but it arrives wildly out of proportion. It’s like putting your ear directly to a speaker and cranking the volume. Even the sweetest, gentlest song becomes a rusty chainsaw in your earholes.
It’s also how you listen. Jumping to outrageous conclusions and connecting dots that aren’t there are other fun features of alcohol absorption. Starting an argument over assumptions spun out of thin air is your surest ticket to the couch or a sock in the puss. Words you drunkenly say, way out of character and context, can’t be unsaid. It’s like squeezing all the mustard out of a little condiment packet and trying to put it back in. Not so easy. A tongue you can’t keep leashed will lead you down a lonely road. Being a belligerent drunk prick won’t win you many friends or lovers.
Motor skills – I woke up with more mystery injuries than I can count over my career as a lush: fractured arms and ribs, concussions, bruises and cuts everywhere imaginable, and falls I don’t remember. Imagine having all the symptoms of being really drunk without having had any alcohol. You’d be scared shitless and want to go to a hospital immediately! It’s preposterous how little concern we give such a stark decline in cognition and muscle control just because it comes packaged as being drunk. It’s brushed off and even laughed at as if nothing’s wrong. Oh, they’re just hammered.
Behavior – To say I made some shamefully poor decisions while intoxicated would be a gross understatement. The fact that I’m alive, haven’t killed anybody, and still have friends is a marvel. Having only four DUIs, minimal jail time, and never totaling a car is astonishing. Every stupid thing I ever did started with the phrase “Well, I had had a few drinks, and…”
Fighting (physical and verbal), driving drunk, risky sex, petty crimes like theft and vandalism, putting myself in dangerous situations, spending money I didn’t have, losing jobs and relationships, not performing at my full potential… (Feel free to copy and paste your own favorite consequences here.) What you do under the influence can bring repercussions that haunt you for years, maybe for life.
Emotional – The emotional rollercoaster alcohol put me on was nauseating. It wrecks your baseline ability to operate as a reasonable human. You start the day with a cognitive deficit: irritability, hair-trigger anger, depression, no focus or energy, and a sense of impending doom. Good luck finding balance when your dopamine gremlins are sitting on one end of the teeter-totter.
Feeling like you’re being controlled
Ever seen one of those old westerns where the villain shoots at the feet of some poor simpleton and sneers, “Dance for me!”? That’s how I started to feel with alcohol. It made me do, say, and think things I didn’t want to, like dragging me out of the comfort of my home to get more, even though I knew I didn’t need it. I was always plotting how to drink before, during, and after whatever I was doing. I gave it all my money and time and got nothing back, like an abusive relationship. Sometimes I even prioritized drinking over sex!
I felt like a marionette with my strings violently yanked in directions I didn’t want to go. It was like being under a witch’s spell, knowing it was a spell and being unable to break it. Worse was the realization that the witches and puppeteers (the trillion-dollar alcohol industry) pay billions for manipulative ad campaigns to keep you enchanted. Commercials everywhere portray alcohol as nothing but a good time and the hallmark of any legitimate celebration. These images are deliberately manufactured to misdirect your attention from the immeasurable damage alcohol causes. I don’t know about you, but being intentionally deceived chaps my hide well beyond the limits that a hide ought to be chapped.
Taking back control, not just from alcohol itself but from the malicious cajolery machine behind it, is another reason (among many) to quit drinking. Stop indulging whiny impulses that boss you around. Stop giving your money to billionaires who don’t give a fuck about your life, who sell you poison under the guise of a “good time.” Take decisive authority over your choices and the words you say to others. The only things we control as human beings are our actions and reactions. Alcohol only adds potholes, blind curves, and black ice to a road that’s hard enough already. Leave it behind and take back the wheel.
“Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”
― Elie Wiesel
*If we all band together, we can make the phrase “sock in the puss” popular again.
#sockinthepuss
