Why Drink?

Hemingway wrote that one should to drink to make others more interesting.  There’s no topping that one, but here are some of my own reasons to drink alcohol:

• In the face of absurdity, which the universe opts to dish out on a daily basis, what else can one do but swallow mild poisons?  

•  Because I have hands that need to hold a glass and a mouth that needs filling, a belly emptied of beer waiting for refill, a spirit unchallenged by banality.

•  Because I can’t sleep.

• How else are we supposed to suffer fools? 

• Because few good stories begin with, “The other day I was sipping tea…”

• By reducing yourself— not daily, you know, but on occasion— to a state of intoxication— not over intoxication, you see, just slight—one can better understand the truth behind the manufactured.  One can see that reality is only as real as we perceive it to be, and perception is malleable given the right amount of spirits.  Who hasn’t seen the world differently through bleary 4 AM eyes? 

• Though booze can destroy a man like Malcolm Lowry, it can also fuel a book like Under the Volcano.

• Because weed is hippie bullshit. 

• There are things we wish to say and do, things that require an excuse.  What better escape clause than “I was drunk”? 

• When drunk, we often realize that we are not impressing anyone and that it doesn’t matter a damn bit.   

• Because the neighbors won’t shut up, the boss is a son of a bitch, the bills are due, the knee’s acting up again, it’s raining, the prayers haven’t been answered, there’s nothing on TV, the government is corrupt, and the world is going to hell. 

• Because you just turned 21. 

• Because you just turned 40.

• Because you just turned 70.

• What better way to understand the frailty of your species than by drinking to excess and waking to a crushing hangover? 

• Someone gets to make alcohol; someone gets to open a bar, gets hired as a bartender, a bar back, a bouncer; someone gets to admit someone else to the drunk tank; someone gets to open a liquor store— all because we drink.  Drinkers are job creators. 

That’s all.  I had more, but that was two whiskies ago.