When drinking becomes a problem

A drinking problem, as explained to me by Phillip, is only considered a real problem if you cannot function on a day-to-day basis. Problematic alcoholics like that are often found lying face down on the pavement on school nights and perpetually seen at work with disheveled hair and crumpled yesterday’s clothes.

By that definition, I definitely do not have a drinking problem. I still go to work (in a fresh set of clothes daily, thank you), climb, eat, sleep and talk with a sliver of sense. I think.

Lately though, I question myself whether I am consuming a wee too much alcohol. Readers of this blog can tell that I begin most entries with “So, that night after ___ bottles of wine/ champagne/ G&Ts….” and then followed (almost certainly) by various bimbotic/ lame/ seemingly ridiculous sequence of events.

I changed the title of this blog recently because I fear my drinking habit is a regression from the “natural order of things”. You are supposed to drink, drank, drunk when you are younger and then you grow out of it and mature into responsible, somber and coherent adults. I think. Injecting alcohol into an aging body is not a very grown up thing to do.

Some people have told me that I drink because I am a lost and confused child hence drinking is my only refuge. Sometimes, I think that but more so, I suspect that maybe I have a problem with not liking the way I am when sober. Maybe I am insecure about being boring, bland, uptight…..my true self? (Quit laughing, folks. The TRUE Frou IS a mild-mannered creature.)

Or perhaps I just plainly abhor the thoughts going through a lucid mind.

One of the dangers of regular drinking, besides a perpetual hole in your pocket, is that you become addicted not to the alcohol per se, but to the fact that it ‘excuses’ your behaviors afterwards. In other words, you are running away from taking responsibility for your actions. Hence I can courageously write about my drunken escapades and claim that there is no wrongdoing on my part.

In law school, we were taught in Tort, that a drunken intent is nonetheless an intent. Meaning, you will not be absolved from the crime you committed whilst under the voluntary intoxication of alcohol. Usually the intent for you to do something already exist before you drink – hence alcohol is usually just the catalyst that pushes you to execute that already existing intention. The only exception is when you are forced fed the alcohol, a defence which unfortunately is not available to me.

Unless of course I can prove that The Toe is to be blamed for my ‘involuntary’ drinking. SHE inspired all my drunken escapades. The look on HER face makes me want to drink myself silly. SHE often is the one who pour all that satan’s liquid into my glass. I am pretty sure she was hiding somewhere in the fridge when I took a bottle of wine out last night...

Or perhaps the world is just a better place when I am not sober. I should blame the world. For becoming ugly and unbearable.

Or perhaps it's because alcohol is the only legally permissible vice available to the public in this country. Had they not banned drugs, deviant sex and chewing gum, I would have been a stoned-out gum-chewing nymphomaniac instead.

Perhaps. Who knows.