More About Grog

I've been wrestling with understanding grog again. Alcohol-drinking is an absolute institution here, as elsewhere; the consequences are so much a part of the fabric and rhythm of daily life that they almost become invisible. Big-city dwellers learn to walk past other human beings as if they were another species, their humanness not registering because they are dirty, out of their minds, drunk, begging, etc. I worry about this happening to me.

I passed an old woman and an old man the other morning who were sitting side by side on the cement foot/bicycle path that I take to and from work every day. (People commonly sit on paths and sidewalks around town and particularly in this area as there are nice trees shading it. I remember being surprised at first that people choose to sit on concrete rather than grass.) The old woman was bawling, sobbing and wailing. The old man just sat looking straight ahead.

I had to veer off into the dirt and grass to go around them, as I often have to do in this area of my ride. Usually I greet the people sitting on the path, some of them apologize for blocking the path, and I'll tell them it's no problem. If the people on the path are extremely hung over, drunk or passed out, the exchange may be entirely one-sided (my "hello"). As I approached these old folks, I wondered if I should stop, if I should ask what was wrong, if I should see if there was anything I could do. But I didn't. There are a million ways to justify my actions, but they don't change the fact that I didn't stop. I didn't ask what was wrong, I just said, "Good morning" as I rode around them.

My greeting sounded so inane. It obviously wasn't a good morning for that lady. I thought about what I could have said (without stopping) that would have been more sensitive. I didn't come up with anything satisfactory.

Anyway, this gets back to grog because I blame my unwillingness to get involved on the extent to which I have become accustomed to seeing people fighting, crying, and passing out in public. I feel powerless and baffled in the face of extensive alcohol use.

GROG in America
I recently read Dry by Augusten Burroughs. It's the follow-up to his childhood memoir, Running with Scissors, although he actually wrote "Dry" first. It highlighted for me the difficulties of sobriety even when you've got a lot going for you, and how hard it is to see that alcohol that you love so much could actually be bad for you. How much harder is it if your life seems like a dead-end, if you feel like a failure, if alcohol seems like your only true and constant friend?

One Friday, more than a month ago, as I left work and hopped on my bike, I felt really happy and full of energy. I had promised to stop by a friend's workplace. As I rode there, I was thinking maybe she'd want to ride down to the hot springs. Instead, I ended up going with these two friends to a bar, where I watched one of them drink glass after glass of wine. She's a strong and fit person and drinks a lot and often, but I felt really sad watching her mental capacity deteriorate quickly. She's smart and clever usually, but after an hour, she'd had 5 glasses of wine I think, and she just didn't get most of the jokes or references that were being made. However, if you didn't know her, you wouldn't notice that anything was wrong, as she seemed perfectly in control of her senses.

Since then, I've been thinking again about alcohol and all the ways it is used around the world and by different people. Why can some people drink a beer on occasion to relax or just to enjoy the taste and be equally satisfied with non-drinking activities, while other people can't enjoy a film or interact socially without grog in their system? Why do alcohol problems become so systemic within certain oppressed populations but not necessarily among all?

What a seductive drug, both beneficial and potentially lethal to individuals and maybe even to cultures. I can't even begin to understand.