Photo by Flickr user mazzle278. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Hi, my name is figleaf and I am not an alcoholic.
However, recently a member of my extended family has moved to the area. And while that member isn’t an alcoholic, that member’s new partner... in a relationship that’s just far enough along to be too hard to for extended family member to just turn away from… turns out to be very, very, very much a verging-on-final-stage alcoholic.
This is turns out to be…
a) everything I’ve always heard even though a lot of what you hear about sounds incredible, hard to believe, stupid, and wrong, and
b) distracting, emotionally draining, time consuming, and
c) a serious challenge to my ideals about treating every human being on the level of a human being
d) even if the alcoholic partner-in-law-in-law-in-common-law sincerely, even desperately seems to want to dry out
Even though I don’t have the enzymes to properly metabolize alcohol, and even though I come from a long, long line of teetotaler temperance-leaguers, I’m not particularly concerned about moderate alcohol consumption. Heck, I used to work in bars. I’ve had perfectly pleasant relationships, including sexual relationships, with people who drank — some of whom drank heavily. But…
But…
But…
Wow, for being legal that stuff sure is astonishingly, deeply, lastingly, damagingly psychotropic. Both directly as in
The brain maintains neurochemical balance through inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters. The main inhibitory neurotransmitter is gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which acts through the GABA-alpha (GABA-A) neuroreceptor. One of the major excitatory neurotransmitters is glutamate, which acts through the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) neuroreceptor.
Alcohol enhances the effect of GABA on GABA-A neuroreceptors, resulting in decreased overall brain excitability. Chronic exposure to alcohol results in a compensatory decrease of GABA-A neuroreceptor response to GABA, evidenced by increasing tolerance of the effects of alcohol.
Alcohol inhibits NMDA neuroreceptors, and chronic alcohol exposure results in up-regulation of these receptors. Abrupt cessation of alcohol exposure results in brain hyperexcitability, because receptors previously inhibited by alcohol are no longer inhibited. Brain hyperexcitability manifests clinically as anxiety, irritability, agitation, and tremors. Severe manifestations include alcohol withdrawal seizures and delirium tremens.
...and by reference as measured by the startling conniptions partners, friends, family members, and sometimes even random strangers can wind up tangled up in the alcohol-user’s problems.
Meanwhile adults can go to prison for smoking pot? A substance, by the way, I also stopped consuming when I turned 21. Meanwhile adults can go to prison for selling (or, but only very rarely, buying) sex. But drinking? Meanwhile questions about eight years with a dry… or possibly wet drunk President, and eight years with a Vice-President who evidently gets so hammered while “hunting” penned animals he can’t tell a 12 ounce quail from a 72-year-old companion turns out not to be “invasions of personal privacy?” What. Ever.
Oh yeah, and since this is at least nominally a blog about sex, relationships, gender, and politics, alcohol seems to have some fascinating properties with regards to, on the one hand, having sex when one otherwise wouldn’t or shouldn’t, and, on the other, being incapable of becoming sexually aroused, when one would very much enjoy it. (And no, I don’t know if that’s the case in the aforementioned situation. I’ve just talked to people in the past who’ve had to deal with it and I thought I’d mention it here.)
$%@!##
Submitted by 2737 (not verified) on Thu, 2009-02-26 16:02.
Yup. Yup.
As for everything, there's a personal level and a political level to this one.
On the political level, there are few treatment centers, and even folk who have insurance often have plans that don't cover effective treatment. Given the astonishing amount of damage alcoholism does, and how widespread it is, that's a political problem with political solutions.
On the personal level, it's very hard to stay sane around alcoholics and the people who love them. There's a lot of drama.
My sanity-preservation program includes the following rights I grant myself:
* I don't have to stay quiet about it.
* I don't have to help anyone do anything self-destructive, whether that help is direct or indirect.
* I don't have to remain in a situation where an alcoholic or alcoholic relationship-drama is occurring.
It can be hard to follow these things in practice largely because doing them means going against our socialization to be polite. It doesn't feel polite to tell a friend that they're drinking too much, or that their spouse is an alcoholic and isn't going to change. It feels impolite to turn down requests for help from someone who does really need it (but will use that help to get in even worse trouble). And insisting on control of your environment means things like, "don't invite them over to your house, and you won't have to kick them out, and don't go to their house and take crap when you leave because they're very drunk." Of course, don't drive or be driven by them; cars are bad places to be trapped with someone who's not in control of their behavior.
I have a number of people in my life who I'll only consent to see in a public place, like a diner, where I can get up and leave. Many alcoholics will try to "clean up" for the public and still retain some ability/desire not to make a public scene, and they may be less drunk if they know they're going to leave their house.
Bad situation. Sucks for your family, I'm sorry to hear it.
Submitted by 2737 (not verified) on Thu, 2009-02-26 18:36.
Alcohol is a very complicated subject. Alcoholic beverages are generally as much food as they are drug, perhaps even more so. And complex, highly nutritious food at that. And even the drug part is good for you in occasional small doses. But on the other hand, you have addiction, birth defects, impaired judgment, out-of-control (and even criminal) behavior, liver damage, etc. as potential consequences for people who don't use it responsibly. And there will always be people who misuse it. Hemp / marijuana is even more complicated in some ways but for similar reasons.