"When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place." - Jimmy Breslin (1930- ), Table Money, 11,1986

What sort of personality starts you drinking anyway? The two kinds of people who I know that start to drink heavily are those who are either unhappy in their lives otherwise, or those who find drinking to be a supporter of a strong social presence. If you stop drinking, then all of a sudden you are either unhappy all of the time, or you lose all of your finds. In either case, your life will feel to you like it has gotten worse. If you are now healthier and more emotionally stable, then you are also sick in heart or head, or are, while being emotionally stable, also very low emotionally. Alcohol is a drug, a chemical concoction which does certain things to your brain. Humans have been dunking for as long as there have been humans, This is because there are benefits to drinking. Drinking alcohol can get you through tough times and Dark nights, so that you drown in the drink instead of drowning in the river. It can lower social inhibitions, and allow for the free flow of speech. So, people often think that drink is, if not good for them in total, at least not bad enough that they need to stop. But that, of course, is only in moderation. We might say that alcohol is really bad for us, but that those negative aspects of its use are balanced out by corresponding, if less powerful, spikes of positivity. Furthermore, the negative effects are often only apparent to us after prolonged use, or at least not until the morning after. When we are drunk, we don't notice them so much. 

We can say that being alive is being in a state of balance. Indeed, most of our life is spent trying to keep up a balance between our personal and private lives, our inner and outer lives, and our wants and finances. We, however, are rarely content with a final balance. Rather, what we seek is a moving balance, one which is always evolving, and which does not stay the same. What is more, much of our balance is such that we find a comfortable place to be, a comfortable life to live and Barrios to stay within, and then we stay there. this place we end up is often not a place that we want to always stay in. Sometimes our lives are sad, and sometimes they are lonely. Sometimes we want to be able to talk to people better, or join in on social rituals, or just not feel so crappy all of the time. In those moments, we drink, and drink heavily. We do so because we are trying to find a better balance, a better life. Unfortunately, humans aren't always the best at knowing what a better life is for them, and how to achieve it. We tend to meander our way through life instead of acting directly and powerfully. Y We are obtuse-moving beings, afraid or unable to look at ourselves directly. Thus, we can find ourselves at the bottom of a beer bottle - if we survive the experience anyway. 

The marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place is not a great personality to have, or a happy life to live. Perhaps we can say though, that there is something to be said for being able to get out of that bottle, to come out the other side. We learn something about ourselves when we do, we are able to see ourselves more clearly. This isn't a good path to go down, but I do wonder if it is really much worse of a path than the other toptions, if we are truly in need of finding a way out of our lives. Doesn't the saying go, that once you have reached the bottom, there is nowhere else to go? Well, there is always somewhere else to go, and that is death. So, drinking is a game played with death. We wound ourselves because we know of no other way to feel something, or to do something. It isn't a good path - much better to be direct. However, it is a path. I suspect that this quote won't seem very funny to someone who drinks or grew up with a drinker, and I don't mean it be. However, for those who do drink and wish to stop,. I think that we cannot live our whole lives in misery and regret. At some time, we need to be able to look at ourselves and laugh. 

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