Wait, Alcohol. Wait.
At university-It’s here that most of us learn about life and the manner in which we’d like to live it. We use this space to grow, to stretch, to discover, to learn and make lots of mistakes. Well, each one of us has to travels their own road to self- discovery. And there’s a price to be paid for growth and discovery: in and out of school. It may be mistakes, loneliness, discipline, resilience, conflict, rejection, determination or doubt. The price is discomfort, stress. It’s pain. And we all itch and scrabble for pain relievers, anesthesia. A sizeable number of us try alcohol. But it is not what we need. It turns out to be Frankenstein’s monster.
What do I mean? Alcohol can sidetrack you from the question, but it cannot give you any answer. It cannot tell you why you are here or what your purpose is. It sidesteps problems and encourages procrastination. It cannot say if you are meant to do anything at all. It cannot give you a launch pad.
Alcohol can serve as fluid courage, but it cannot vouchsafe to you what’s worth a risk. It cannot tell you ahead of time that things will work out if you doggedly put yourself out there. It cannot decide for you if something is worth your mettle.
Alcohol can take the edge off, but it cannot deracinate the source of the stress. It cannot bring true comfort. It cannot right what your intuition warns is wrong. It cannot disinhibit you. It instead leaves you with an avalanche of fear and uncertainty.
Alcohol has soporific effects, but it cannot bring you rest. It cannot save you from those thoughts that keep you curled on your bed like an apostrophe, awake at 3 A.M. It cannot make those problems disappear the next morning. It leaves you broken, empty and way more jaded than it found you. And like all other addictive agents, alcohol ‘meets a need’ and to some degree plugs some hole in our souls. Pull out the plug (alcohol), and the hole reappears, bigger and stinging than ever- threatening to drain everything away. Warding off this sting demands remedial action. “This is the last bottle I’m drinking,” we promise ourselves daily. But continue to imbibe. Alcoholism, its arms akimbo, smirks at our inability to keep the promise.
The more we renege on that promise, the deeper we sink into the mire. A study from John Hopkins University reported that people who drink daily have smaller brains. And remember when it comes to the brain, size is a factor.
Alcohol can keep one elated, but for how long? Alcohol cannot fabricate vitality where there’s none. It cannot initiate connection. It cannot establish a bond. Alcohol can help you befriend someone, but it cannot earn their trust for you. It cannot encourage them to open up. It cannot inspire real closeness. It can loosen our tongues so we can tell the truth, but it cannot engender the feelings of credence. It cannot put those feelings into words. It cannot fill the spaces where language is deficient either.
Alcohol can be an alibi for misconduct, but it cannot make amends for your mischief. It cannot undo the circumstances it can put you in. It can make us remorseful and parade our regrets before us, but it cannot apologize for us. It cannot undo the choices we have made. It cannot unsay the words we have spoken. It cannot explain to someone how you feel about them.
Alcohol can disinfect wounds, but it cannot heal a broken heart. It cannot cure sadness, depression. It cannot make straight what has been twisted. Real solutions are not to be found at the bottom of the bottle.
Alcohol can grace achievements and celebrations, but it cannot account for the industry it takes to get there. It cannot forego the need for continuous effort in your future tasks. It cannot stretch out an achievement forever.
You may accuse me (falsely) of being a warped prig, but I’m only against misapplication of alcohol. It is sobering to realize the limits of the bottle.