Wondering About the Alcohol in My Life

I never drank until a few months before my 21st birthday. I took my sports way too seriously to let booze into my life. I believe that my purity of body was a big reason I was able to train my body to fly 43" from a stand still. Even after I no longer refused to drink, I was never much of a boozer.


Now I'm not going to pretend that drinking alcohol is part of my job. But part of my job is indeed going out and socializing with Wall Streeters and company executives and sales people and so on. And I've been a single dude in NYC off and on for nine years, and I go on dates and stuff too, you know?

Anyway, I find I drink more nights these days than I don't. When I go out, I might have a couple glasses of wine. Or on other nights, maybe three or four beers sometimes. And even when I'm home I usually have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner. And I do have a bottle of Grey Goose in my fridge that I'll make a drink with on occassion too. And I did finish that bottle of Glen Livet 25 that I'd bought as a reward to myself for something or another a year ago or so.


So I've wondered to myself at times: What constitutes alcholism? I mean, I know those horrid stories of people who get the shakes and have booze hidden in their drawers and stuff. But what about me, having at least one drink five or six nights a week? And I don't buy that crap about how drinking a glass of wine is supposedly GOOD for us. Yeah, and so are leeches when you're sick, right? And heat that sprained ankle. No, ice it. But I digress.

In the past year, I've asked a couple doctor friends and a psychiatrist uncle and psychologist aunt about it. They laughed at me when I told them I was worried about it and described it. Then I read this article in the WSJ by Kevin Helliker yesterday, describing someone who apparently isn't an alcoholic, but "determined she was drinking nine to 16 shots of vodka an evening, four to seven evenings a week. Although primarily a social drinker, she sometimes snuck snorts in the basement, where she kept a bottle."

And I'm thinking: Now I get why everybody thought it was so funny that I was even worried about it. But then again, you know it's a good thing that I am worried about it.

Let's drink to that! Cheers.