The Mindless Ramblings Of An Anonymous Alcoholic

I was disturbed this morning to read the drunken blog ramblings of an individual I'll call Anonymous Alcoholic, aka AA.

It has been suggested to AA, by several concerned observers, that he not do any blogging after he has consumed alcohol. But, the suggestion has gone ignored, once more with embarrassing results.

AA vehemently denies being an alcoholic, despite the pile of evidence to the contrary. For one thing he is constantly talking about the booze he is drinking. And posting pictures of himself with the booze he is drinking. You see 2 examples of AA's drinking pictures here. I have cropped the pictures so as to preserve AA's anonymity.

In AA's latest drunken rambling he goes on about his superior intellect, confirmed by tests, like the SAT. And being the top student in his high school class of 11. Now, being the top student in a class of 693, that might be impressive. But #1 of 11? I think I'd keep that nugget to myself.

And then AA goes on to say that due to his daunting IQ all the stupid people have trouble relating to him. This was troubling to AA and had him feeling alone in the world. And then AA discovered that if he drank alcohol it dumbed him down enough that people could now relate to him.

Alcohol curing AA of his poorly developed social graces came as a revelation when someone told the inebriated AA that when he was drunk he acted normal. AA took that to mean he acted like all the other stupid people. And thus AA's alcoholic coping mechanism was born.

I have been in the presence of AA when he is sober and when he is not sober. Now I have never found him all that smart when sober or any dumber when drunk. I have noticed a slightly less shyness level when AA is medicated, with more of a propensity to converse in a friendly manner with strangers.

There is talk among those of us concerned about AA's descent into Don Birnam Lost Weekend territory that an intervention is desperately needed. The means to that end has not yet been determined.

I Am Not An Alcoholic, But I Know A Few

Recently one of my corespondents verbalized concern that a mutual acquaintance had developed a bit of a drinking problem. This particular individual with the drinking problem feels that alcohol helps overcome introvertedness in social situations.

I have been in social situations with the individual in question and I can say without a doubt that the consumption of alcohol does not make the individual more acceptably sociable. What it does is create the illusion that the individual is interacting more successfully with his fellow humans.

A couple drinks of alcohol a day is supposedly healthy. According to those who should know, over 14 million American men regularly knock back more than a couple drinks a day.

If you let your thirst for this medicine reach the 5 drinks or more a day level, you are in danger territory.

You will be hurting your liver, with cirrhosis a likely result. It takes 5 to 10 years of abusing your liver before damage sets in. If you stop with the excess booze, your liver can recover.

Another way too much booze can kill you is driving drunk. That happens way too often. And way too often it is the drunk driver killing another person.

Alcohol is a factor in 4 out of 10 violent crimes. So, if you drink too much you are much more likely to get murdered or murder someone.

Chronic heavy drinking enlarges and weakens your heart muscle. You'll start to swell up because of retaining water, your other muscles will start wasting away. The damage may repair itself if you stop drinking.

If you are an extremely heavy drinker, as in an average of 12 drinks a day, for over 25 years, you will likely develop Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome where the drinking causes a B vitamin deficiency, which causes Wernicke's encephalopathy to develop. This is a degenerative nerve disorder that messes with your ability to concentrate, balance, awareness of your surroundings, paralysis of your eye muscles and eventually it will kill you, but likely not before you also develop Korsakoff's Syndrome. That's where you can not recall old information or understand anything new.

So, there you have it, all you drunks out there. Several reasons to get off the sauce. Or at least cut back, way back.

America Not Number One In Alcohol Consumption

This afternoon I came across a list from the World Health Organization ranking the World's countries by how many liters of pure alcohol are consumed per capita per year in each country.

The United States did not do too well on this list. We aren't even in the Top 40. Little Luxembourg is the World's top consumer of booze at 15.56 liters per capita per year. The United States is #43 at a measly 8.44 liters. Luxembourg drinks almost twice as much as we do.

Australia drinks more than we do, coming in at #38 with 9.02 liters per. It's not much of a shock that Russia is drunker than us, #27 with 10.32 liters. France is drunker than the Russians at #17 with 11.43 liters. The United Kingdom almost cracked the Top Ten at #11 and 11.75 liters.

I guess it is no great surprise that the Irish are #2, drinking 13.69 liters of pure alcohol per capita per year.

America's neighbor to the north drinks less than we do, #50 with 8.00 liters. Maybe the Canuch's relative sobriety is due to excessive beer consumption with its lesser amount of alcohol than something like vodka.

Our neighbor to the south is way more sober than even the Canadians, coming in at #96 and only 4.50 liters per capita. Maybe the Mexicans don't drink their tequila and save it all for export.

It's a 4 way tie for most sober country at #197 and 0.00 liters of pure alcohol consumption per capita per year. The 4 totally sober places on the planet are Bangladesh, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and, this one is a surprise, one of the American territories, the United States Virgin Islands. I find that hard to believe.

You can look at the entire list by going here....