A Piece of My Mind: Alcohol.

Good 'ol alcohol.  Booze, hooch, brews, brewskis, hard stuff, juice, grog, sauce.*  As many of you already know, I'm not too much of a fan of alcohol.  I have never been drunk and I have tasted alcohol only on a select few occasions and haven't been too partial to the flavor either.

Yet I think my attitude towards alcohol has a tendency to become slightly misconstrued.  Allow me to give you a piece of my mind...

1.)  I do not like the idea of being drunk, and I'm not too fond of drunk people, either.  Why, you may ask?  Put shortly, it's because being drunk changes who you are... Drunk Daniel and Daniel are not the same person.  And I don't like the idea of not being me.**  I've heard the argument made that being drunk removes your inhibitions, so it makes you who you really are.  I think that's a load of dookie.  My inhibitions make me who I am, and therefore removing them makes me who I am not.

As far as other people drinking goes, the same principle applies.  I am friends with my friends because I like who they are, their sense of humor, their actions, and many other things about them.  Yet when someone gets drunk, they're really no longer that person I became friends with.  They have different attitudes toward things - they think different things are funny and different things are serious.  They do things they don't usually do.  They go about decision making in a different way.  Realize here that I am in no way saying that when a friend gets drunk, we are no longer friends.  I still like them, I still want to hang out with them, and I still care for them.  I'm simply explaining my reasoning behind my dislike for drunkenness.

2.)  I do not consider drinking a "sin."  Jesus drank and Jesus lead a perfect, sinless life.  End of argument there.  I do not, however, like the idea of breaking the law and drinking underage.  I will drink when I'm 21, and that's fine with me.  Sometimes I honestly think that lowering the drinking age would be good simply because it would get people over the thrill of drinking early, so we don't have 19 and 20 year-olds bragging about "how totally crud-faced I got last night" so much.  If you're old enough to own a gun and vote on the fate of the country, you should be able to have a beer.

3.)  I think people put alcohol on way too high of a pedestal.  By this, I mean that people have a tendency to become dependent on alcohol to have a good time or even an interesting time.  I once heard a friend of mine explain to me, "but Daniel, I'm funny when I get drunk."  This was a friend whom I consider to be one of the funniest people alive.  She's made me laugh more times than I can count.  And all of those times, she was completely sober.  That comment conveyed a mindset of reliance on alcohol... as if she's starting to think that she can only be funny while drunk.  I think a similar mindset permeates many of my peers.  Drinking goes from a way to have fun to the way to have fun.

Notice I did not say that drinking isn't fun.  From what I hear from a number of people, it's a hoot.  I don't doubt that, it's just that a reliance on alcohol seems to develop a lot of times.  I'm also not saying that everyone who gets drunk becomes dependent on it and consequently becomes an alcoholic. .. that's just silly.

4.) I'm a little bit afraid of drunk people.  I'm pretty sure this originates from the first time I ever saw my dad drunk.  He came home one night and was unusually rowdy and loud.  I didn't understand why he was acting so different, but it kinda frightened me.  He wasn't acting like Dad, he was acting like a stranger who's company I didn't enjoy.  I was pretty young, so I went into my room and got in a box.***  My brother or sister (I forget which, but it was probably Jake,) came to see what I was up to and then ran to my dad yelling, "He's hiding in a box!"  Everyone had a good laugh at my expense.  That was my first encounter with drunkenness, and I was not too impressed.****

I hope this post has successfully conveyed my opinion towards alcohol and my reasoning behind those opinions.  Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks for reading,

-Daniel K

*I Google-searched "nicknames for alcohol" for those.  Hope you liked 'em.

**This is more or less the same reason I don't like the idea of being high, taking sleeping medicine, or even pain relievers...  I'm just not too keen on not being who I am.  I know I'm being a bit extreme with the latter two, but I'm okay with that.

***It was a thing I used to do a lot.  It didn't have to be boxes, either.  Laundry baskets and closets worked just as well.

****The point here is not my dad, the point is being drunk.  I'm not mad at my dad and I'm not accusing him of ruining my life or scarring me or any of that nonsense.  But I honestly think that's where my fear of drunkenness came from.