About two and a half years ago, at the turn of the new year, I decided I would stop drinking. I told a male friend this, and his response was that he wanted to get me drunk one last time, and just like mixing brown and white, that did not sit well with me.
As of March 19, 2024, I can count six times that I’ve had a drink this year, and honestly, I’m a bit disappointed in myself because the reasons for me not drinking have very little to do with a physical desire to drink, but rather a desire of those around me, as four of those occasions were birthday celebrations. My disappointment conjoined with the fact that everyone wants me to have a drink for them, but no one wants to stay sober for me, and honestly, I’m not completely sober, just a different type of sober. I am unequivocally the high friend because if not, I would be the anxious friend, and that is the vice I choose to imbibe in, for lack of a better word. So, while my condemnation of drinking does not come with completely dry hands, it does come with the knowledge that my vice is, well, better and less dangerous than drinking. I also mostly consume my THC through edibles or a water bong because I am childish and like candy and making weed water bubbles.
The last time I was drunk was on Jan. 1, 2020. I only had about two drinks but woke up the next morning throwing up into my purse. Thinking about how that year went, I wonder now if I am some sort of oracle. It was not the first time I was drunk. I have been various degrees of drunk, from birthdays that I cannot remember to bad days that I tried to forget. I’ve also known that alcohol turns ‘friends’ into strangers far too quickly. I am no stranger to opening a bottle of wine and finding a portal out of my sadness; waking up to an empty bottle and the emptiness I attempted to escape returning. In my early 20s, I dated an alcoholic for about four years. Cognac was not the only thing he abused, and so when he left, all my inhibitions went with him. For about a year, I celebrated my freedom from someone who was the meanest to me when he was drunk by…getting drunk… multiple nights out of the week. My father drank beer like it was water in my childhood, but my mother never had a vice that was prominent enough for a child to see. When my parents split up, I essentially grew up in a dry household, but drinking was not this taboo thing. I just waited until it was legal to do it for real. My first official drink was scotch. It tasted like tape. It did nothing for me but be another chest-burning reminder of the adulthood that awaited me.
Blame it on some Netflix special about the dangers of alcohol and/or remembering what a hangover feels like, but I realized that, yes, people are going to have vices but drinking is kind of a weird one. Alcohol is so embedded in our society that we don’t really know how sh*tty it is because, well, there are also people who don’t want you to know (cue the conspiracy theory music). First off, alcohol causes cancer. No, seriously, alcohol is a known carcinogen, just like smoking cigarettes is. According to the CDC, “When you drink alcohol, your body breaks it down into a chemical called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde damages your DNA and prevents your body from repairing the damage. DNA is the cell’s “instruction manual” that controls a cell’s normal growth and function. When DNA is damaged, a cell can begin growing out of control and create a cancer tumor.”
Yes, alcohol literally destroys your DNA. I’m not a Black NASA scientist, but that definitely does not sound like it’s good for you. That’s not the only harmful long-term side effect of drinking alcohol; according to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, drinking causes a whole host of serious medical issues, including diseases or malfunction of the brain, heart, liver and pancreas, more specifically listed here.
While some studies show that drinking two drinks or less a day for men and one for women is acceptable, According to the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025, individuals who do not drink alcohol should not start drinking for any reason. You read that correctly; you should not start drinking for any reason.
While I’d like to say long-term health was my main/only reason for drastically cutting my alcohol consumption, I would be a liar if I omitted that vanity played a huge part. Not only does alcohol dry out the skin, which of course decreases your elasticity, but it also inflames the skin, oh joy! Oh, and those grays you dread so much? Yeah, alcohol causes premature graying, but that’s if it will allow you even to keep your hair because it also contributes to hair loss. I just don’t think being a wrinkly bald drunk is what I want for myself, and though that may sound drastic, I just think a little poison is still too much poison. But I also have not had beef or pork since the 90s, so maybe I’m just allergic to fun.
Oh, and the last part, I keep forgetting. Alcohol kills people, and the worst part is not just the people who drink, either.
She died from drunk driving yesterday.
— Sir Dickson (@Wizarab10) March 18, 2024
Drunk driving is not a flex. Don't drive when you're high. Peaceful rest to her. https://t.co/LjWDkAZRgZ
The woman who lived two doors down from my mother was always feisty, some would even call her a b*tch, but if nothing else, far into her seventies, she briskly walked her dog, Mr. Ruffles, succeeded by Ms. Truffles, upon his passing, every day. Amanda was the HOA president and a no-nonsense woman who sometimes cared too much until she didn’t. Her years of sobriety were undone by whatever loneliness she tried to hide from, which eventually found her. Her car wrapped around a sign at the same Walgreens she went to buy wine from, but it wasn’t her wake-up call. She never got one. Within a year of drinking again, the once vibrant old woman, who was too spiteful to die young, was dead from alcohol-induced brain bleeding. I’ve been hit by a drunk driver—thankfully the damage was minimal—but I’ve also been the first person on the scene of a car accident where I found a woman whose engine caught fire and a girl slumped over her wheel a few feet away, bleeding from her face. I thought she was dead. Fortunately, no one died that day, but she did end up going to jail. She’s lucky, and while that was her, that’s definitely not always the case. Not dying isn’t the only good reason not to drink and drive, but just in case it is, according to the National Highway Safety Administration, someone dies in an alcohol-related crash every 39 minutes.
So, every day in this country, 37 people die a preventable death; especially sobering when you find out that the impaired driver has a better chance of survival than the person they hit.
Two Xitter users have found out the hard way that their penchant for drinking and driving ends lives. Jayana Tanae Webb tweeted about being the “best drunk driver ever,” but she also tweeted about driving drunk the night she killed three people, including two state troopers. She was 21 and her “best drunk driver,” tweet was from two months before the accident. This past weekend Xitter user @IRuntheNAYtion Naysha Jackson drove her car in the wrong direction, causing a three-car accident, causing her death and the death of another driver. She bragged about driving drunk as far back as 2015 and subsequently posted about being drunk many times since. Because she is dead, there is an immediate need to sanitize the carelessness of her actions.
Jayana Tanae Webb, 21, appeared to have tweeted she was the ‘best drunk driver ever’ weeks before she allegedly struck and killed two state troopers and a third man while driving under the influence https://t.co/5HvZmyQCKm
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 23, 2022
Xitter is divided over whether demonizing a woman who disregarded her life, as well as the lives of others and showed it with her work, is the human thing to do. Many users are upset that others would be so vocal about their disgust for a drunk driver, whether she is living or not, even going so far as to compare her actions to eating while driving. While death may be considered the ultimate punishment for many crimes, I doubt that the family of the other woman feels that justice will ever be served. Is condemning her and her actions so much more disgusting than what she did?
Would people be so sympathetic had two other people died and she lost her life to the prison system?
Shame has always had its place on Xitter, every day and for less egregious acts, why are the dead too good for shame? I mean, it’s not like she’s going to see it, but the worst part is that sanitizing her actions absolutely makes them less egregious for the living. People get on Xitter every day and talk about how they drink and drive, maybe the eagerness to quiet others for calling out drunk driving is a feeling of guilt for frequently indulging in the same behavior.
Prohibition does not work, but I also think that we do not consume alcohol in moderation. Many restaurants have ‘drinks,’ menus that are always so fancy when alcohol is involved, but I might be lucky to get a lemonade that isn’t tap. If I’m really lucky, I’ll get a mocktail that costs just the same amount as the alcoholic one does, yeah.
Alcohol is where a lot of businesses make good money, so the upcharge to them is important, but that can sometimes cause them to force their greed onto the customer. Atlanta has a two-drink minimum culture for many establishments, especially if live entertainment is involved. There is very little consideration for people who also suffer from alcoholism and just want to get outside. It is almost like people are forced to drink in order to have a good time and then, of course, drive home. We live in a time of rideshare and friends at our fingertips. While it may be a hassle, especially if you drove there, that hassle is nothing compared to taking someone’s life. Alcohol may look sexy, but it can also strip you of that sexy too.
At the end of the day, if you are going to drink, let that be a personal decision you make between you and your body by staying your drunk ass home.
