We’ve been friends for over 20 years, and you pull that shenanigan on me? Really? You were around but not directly involved in most of my drinking days, and you know that I haven’t had any liquor since March 1997—staying sober through the loss of my parents, promotions, demotions, and all manner of life in between. There were times I wanted so badly to jump back into that bottle but didn’t. You know all of that. But because you are a twisted fuck, you poked at me.
“I’ll make dinner!” you offered, kindly. And you did, and it was great. Including the caramels and sorbet. I only ate a small amount of the sorbet because you know I am diabetic and cannot eat the caramels.
“This is so good and rich!” I commented. “Tastes like port, almost.”
Last night, a week later, in a conversation, you commented that you had read the ingredients of the container and saw that the sorbet had cabernet in it.
Why even tell me? You must have read the container before serving it to me. The way you told me about it was as if you knew all along. Don’t look for me to be in the next 20 years of your life, you sick fuck.
—Anonymous
@46 I had dinner with some friends at their house in Italy and after I’d finished eating this very yummy steak, I was informed that I had just ate horse. Yep, I was pissed. I wanted to flip over the dinner table, while yelling and cursing. I wanted to throw wine glasses and hit people with chairs, but I didn’t. Because I’m not a D-bag lunatic. Now, where was I going with this……?
It all started with the tiramisu at Buca di Beppo…
@58 … hee hee on so many levels.
You don’t have to wonder whether or not AA is a cult. There are books! (And yes, it’s a cult.) There’s another way to tell here on this very web page: the content of this week’s I, Anonymous, in which a human being who hasn’t drunk alcohol in more than 14 years labels him/herself an “alcoholic.”
But back to the books, try those written by Stanton Peele.
ummm…. so what? it doesn’t seem to me that it’s going to plunge your life back into chaos or hook you back on the bottle to taste something cooked with a bit of liquor. Do you also not use nail polish remover? sheesh, lighten up.
People who cook with wine: you DO realize that by applying heat to the wine, you’re cooking away all of the alcohol content, right? Your food does not magically become a cocktail. It just tastes a little bit like wine.
You are a terrible friend to treat someone who did something nice for you in such a contemptible way.
@56: Alcoholism is a combined physiological and psychological addiction to alcohol, such that if one has a sufficient quantity of alcohol to trigger the addictive frame (or other triggers), one loses the ability to self-regulate with respect to alcohol consumption. I don’t actually know of any studies off hand that track whether the addiction is permanent (or attempt to identify contexts under which it is and isn’t); perhaps none have been done, as the (former?) alcoholics participating would be risking potentially disastrous relapse. Not drinking at all may be a risk-avoidance strategy for people who know they have impulse-control issues around alcohol (but may or may not be ‘true’ addicts), and it may be that some people are truly addicts for life. With respect to another addiction: my smoking has varied enough over the years, ranging from 1+ pack/day to not at all, for months or even years in a stretch, to where it is now at 0-2 cigarettes a day, that I know some combined physical/psychological addictions are not permanent (or don’t result in a total loss of impulse control; I know other people who smoked daily for years and cut back to a few cigarettes a year); I don’t know how similar alcohol and nicotine addiction are in terms of their neurochemical functioning, though, as one is a depressant and one is a stimulant. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a story where someone who was an alcoholic was ‘cured’ to the point where sie could then drink in moderation, without once again losing impulse control and abusing the drug. Part of it may be related to the fact that alcohol is a depressant, and as such, it suppresses inhibitory neuron functioning, which is necessary for impulse control.
@63: Nope, not even close to true. While some of the alcohol cooks off, a decent percentage sticks around, depending on cooking method and time cooked. See: http://www.ochef.com/165.htm (this Wikipedia page lists the source used for the percentages remaining: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_wit… )
I see The Stranger has gotten rid of their Forums. What a shame.
@56 and @65. There seem to be about 9% of the population that have a “short” brain enzyme or receptor, as a mutation they’re born with, that produces what is popularly called an “addictive personality.” This may be monoamine oxidase or a mutation in a serotonin receptor. Some people even have two such mutations. It’s way more complicated than that of course, but 56 wants to know how alcoholism can be a permanent condition, and this is how. Also, less than half of the people with one of the mutated receptors becomes an alcoholic. So there’s that.
Another route to alcoholism for people with normal receptors is by working at it. This is what 65 was getting at. If you start drinking a lot suddenly and chronically, you can inhibit and eventually kill off neurons in your pre-frontal cortex responsible for your powers of self-control. Some drugs do this REALLY well, such as meth (don’t go there, kiddies).
Also, some drugs are so rewarding that anyone could have their self control hijacked; high doses of alcohol do this, but the hangover usually inhibits further exploration. And along those lines: METH! (don’t go there, kiddies)).
The problem with alcoholism is that it’s really hard to know what kind of alcoholic you are. So, to be on the safe side (and why not) an alcoholic is just taught not to drink. I mean, some alcoholics could probably risk it after they recovered some of their self-control through sobriety, but really, why risk it?
I think it’s BS to say that AA is a cult. My dad was an alcoholic, but recovered since before I was born. He didn’t go to meetings anymore, but he was definitely better off because of AA. Also, he was married to my mom and never urged her to get sober, because she didn’t have a problem. When talking to me and my brother about alcohol, he warned us to be careful and pay attention because it was in our genes, but never said there was anything inherently bad about alcohol- he just couldn’t handle it.
As for the I,A: “Why even tell me? You must have read the container before serving it to me.” That’s what he’s upset about. He’s upset that they decided to let him eat it first and then tell him, when there was nothing he could do about it. Also, it was a whole week later. Maybe after he said the “tastes like port comment”, the friend could’ve gotten worried and read the ingredients, but the way this sounds is that the friend sneaked him sorbet with wine in it.
HA HA @ the IA!
YOU FELL OFF THE WAGON. YOU’RE A TOTAL FAILURE!!!
@65 and @67 Thank you for posting. It’s dangerous how many people think that being an alcoholic is the same as drinking too much. I remember an alcoholic friend say to me “I’m not alcoholic because I don’t crave it in the morning!” Luckily she got help and finally realized that she can never drink again.