Who’s pulling the strings?
Total loss of control. That’s how I’d describe my drinking days. Not just feeling like I had no agency over myself when I was drunk, but I also felt like I was being controlled and manipulated. It gives me the “ick” just thinking about my former self. I couldn’t do anything social without alcohol, not even a phone call to a friend. It eventually seeped its way into every action and thought, either directly or indirectly. A cheap can of beer was at the steering 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 losing my pants in the crash.
Loss of control takes many forms. Here are a few examples:
Speech - Slurring your words might be the least sexy thing you can do. Your credibility is annihilated once you’ve lost the basic function of your tongue. It’s not just how you speak; it’s what you’re saying. The phrase “drunk man's tongue, sober man's mind” isn’t necessarily true. Sure, you might verbalize an insignificant, fleeting thought you’ve kept in the dark corners of your brain, but it’s delivered entirely out of proportion. It’s like putting your ear directly to a speaker and turning up the volume full blast. Even the sweetest, most gentle song can turn into an audible rusty chainsaw plunging straight into your earholes at maximum volume. The tune is beautiful when it’s balanced and a nightmare when it’s not.
It’s not just what you’re saying; it’s how you listen. Jumping to outrageous conclusions and connecting dots that aren’t there is another fun feature of alcohol absorption. Starting an argument by constructing assumptions out of thin air, based on little to no evidence, is your surest ticket to sleeping on the couch or getting a *sock in the puss. The words you drunkenly say that are way out of character and context cannot be unsaid. It’s like squeezing all the mustard out of one of those little condiment packets and then trying to put it back in–not so easy. The inability to restrain your tongue from becoming forked will lead you down a lonely road. Being a belligerent drunk prick won’t win you a lot of 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, bruises and cuts everywhere imaginable, concussions, stumbling and falling–you name it. Imagine having all the symptoms of being really drunk, but you hadn’t had any alcohol. You’d be scared shitless and want to go to a hospital immediately! It’s preposterous how little concern is applied to such a stark deterioration of cognitive acuity and rudimentary muscle movement when it’s 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 truly a marvel. Having only 4 DUIs, minimal jail time, and never totalled a car is astonishing. Every stupid thing I ever did started with the phrase “Well, I had had a few drinks, and…”
Fighting (physical/verbal), driving drunk, risky sexual behavior, 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.) Your behavior whilst under the influence of alcohol can lead to repercussions that may haunt you for years, maybe even the rest of your life.
Emotional - The emotional rollercoaster I was on from alcohol was nauseating. It completely derails your baseline threshold to operate as a reasonable human. It causes you to start your day with a cognitive deficit: irritability, hair-trigger anger, depression, lack of focus and energy, and a sense of impending doom. You’re fighting an uphill battle when your dopamine gremlins are making your emotional teeter-totter unbalanced.
Feeling like you’re being controlled
Have you ever seen one of those old western movies where the antagonist shoots at the feet of some poor simpleton, and with a sinister chuckle barks out “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 forcing me to get up and leave the comfort of my home to get more, despite knowing I didn’t need it. I was always thinking ahead of how I was going to be able to drink before, during, and after whatever activity I was doing. I was giving all my money and time while getting nothing back in return–like an abusive relationship. Sometimes, I’d even prioritize drinking over sex!
I felt like a marionette with my strings violently pulled in directions I didn’t want to go. It was like being under a witch's spell, knowing I was under a spell, but couldn’t do anything about it. Making it worse was the realization that the witches and puppeteers (the trillion-dollar alcohol industry) are paying billions of dollars for manipulative, propagandizing ad campaigns to keep you enchanted. No eyeballs are free from seeing perpetual commercials portraying alcohol as being nothing other than a good time and the hallmark of any legitimate celebration. These images and perceptions are being deliberately manufactured with the sole purpose of misdirecting 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.
Getting your control back from not just alcohol itself, but from the malicious cajolery machine behind the alcohol is another reason (among the many) to quit drinking. Stop indulging whiny impulses that boss you around. Don’t give any more money to billionaires who don’t give a fuck about your life, who are selling you poison under the guise of a “good time.” Have decisive authority over your choices and the words you say to others. The only things we have control over as human beings are our actions and reactions–and in some circumstances, even that is up for debate. Alcohol only brings storms and violent waves that make navigating the seas of your existence more treacherous than they should be. Steer your ship more easily, gracefully, and confidently by leaving alcohol behind.
“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
