rat

I think I'll take this thread from a completely different angle from someone else--alcoholism.

I personally, am an alcoholic. I say this in all seriousness, and there are a few members that followed my journal closely last year as I spiraled down into the depths of drinking to the point of drunkeness or alcohol poisoning 7 days a week. I drank to the extent that my body phyiscally could not heal itself at a reasonable rate, and there are scars from injuries that would have healed in a couple of days when I was younger (and I'm only 21). Recently, I've been getting some serious alcohol abuse counseling, and I'm turning alot of my life around. Been completely dry for 20 days at this point, and every day is a different type of struggle from the last.

That background is meant to emphasize two points: genetic/behaviorial predisposition and a common acceptance of derogatory terms for unmentionable classes of people.

First off, I have two great-uncles that physically drank themselves to death on my dad's side, a grandfather that died in august that drank every day for the better part of 50 years, two alcoholic uncles on my mom's side. Both sides of my family have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism and growing up around people that drank all the time made social drunkenness acceptable in my mind because I was used to seeing it--providing me a behaviorial predisposition to drunkenness to go with the genetic. I don't hide behind either one of those reasons for my drinking. I drank because it numbed the world and thus allowed me to get through each day. I hated various aspects of my life from the tanked relationship I lost with a girl I almost got engaged to, all the way to my dad's dad dying of cancer in august. My whole world came crashing down around my ears, and I drank. But I sought help, and it's altered my behavior to the point where I can look at the fridge full of my roommate's beer and not even want one. I can walk through my favorite bars across the street from campus and spend four hours drinking sodas while all my old drinking buddies get drunk and my friends that bartend talk to me. And I'm slowly getting healthier, my body is responding in a positive fashion, and I'm growing less irritable as withdrawal leaves. But it took professional help, and it hasn't been easier. So even a genetic component to a lifestyle can be combatted with the proper assistance.

On to the second portion--the latent prejudice and attitudes towards socially undesirable classes. No one's proud of their alcoholic uncle. No one's proud of the cousin that drinks himself under the table 6 nights a week. No one likes living with a roommate that only comes home to pass out after getting roaring drunk. At the same time, there's a misperception in society about what constitutes alcoholism. My roommate knows I'm in abuse counseling, and his insensitive ass constantly refers to himself as an alcoholic when he's anything but. Just because he gets wasted at the parties we go to, or drinks soically when we have people over, he thinks it's hilarious to call himself an alcoholic. And it fucking pisses me off. Those of us who do have a disease to fight don't exactly enjoy people who make light of it. To me, it's like someone running through a cancer ward cracking jokes about melanoma because they got a tan at the beach. It's something people have become socially desensitized because alcoholics aren't something that people publically acknowledge in a positive light--and therefore, it's ok to make fun of them. At the same time no one I've ever met says "Hey, I've got this morbidly obese friend of mine I'd like to introduce you to, I think y'all would look great together!" Here in my dorm, the term is DUFF--Designated Ugly/Fat Friend--when a cute girl comes by with a friend that's not as attractive physically. And everyone thinks it's ok to do it. My buddy Ben has an asian friend named Anna that is a larger girl but still beautiful--my roommate (who is 5'7" 365lbs himself) calls her "Fasian" for 'Fat Asian." I think having an extremely obese person in our dorm that will call girls fat unconsciously reinforces to the rest of us that it's ok to act in a negative manner to large women.

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