The prevalence of alcohol

I find it interesting that so many people, especially the young, run to the bottle every chance they get. Where I live that means binge drinking in the weekends since they have enough time to sober up before work or school on Monday.

People get a grin on their face every time the subject of alcohol is brought up. At the age of 21, I've never been drunk. I don't like the taste of alcohol but what's more, I can't find anything positive about intoxication. Yet intoxication seems to be the obvious state of being whenever possible.

To me it appears that people who get wasted at every opportunity are extremely eager to shut off their mind. Apparently life isn't good enough when experienced with full consciousness and clarity.

Now, knowing what we know about society and people in general, this follows logically from the train wreck of philosophy that resides in the average mind.

I discovered a few months back that I have a condition which basically means that I don't process alcohol in the normal way and become rather ill if I drink all but the smallest amounts. The funny thing is that it's taken years to even discover it because I had been so moderate in my consumption that I never really noticed. I can at least abstractly grasp the appeal of moderate consumption but the idea of getting actually drunk on purpose is completely puzzling to me. What inhibitions I do have are in my opinion very sensible ones which I have no desire to be rid of. If I didn't want them, I wouldn't have them - I suppose I'm just not the repressed type. And not remembering my fun seems somewhat counterproductive.

But this culture of actual binge drinking is as you say indicative of much deeper problems, both in the individuals involved and in the culture as a whole. It's the kind of thing that signals a profound breakdown.

That's what I thought. No school? No work? Time to get drunk, then. It's a given. Young teenagers are yearning for it. They'll ask their parents, older brother or some random punk to buy it in their place. Nevermind the medical concerns, these people can't wait to "reach" the coveted lower level of consciousness.

Philosophy is at best a one hour footnote in 8th grade about a couple of bearded, two thousand whatnow-old guys named Socrates, Aristotle and Plato.

As we know, "Philosophy: who needs it?" was a rethorical question.

Yeah, drinking to excess seems to be a specific ambition among a broad cross section of society.

Its more or less been the norm as far as I can tell across the whole spectrum of human history. I'm not sure that makes things better, but at least it isn't unprecedented, even if the reasons for it seem vestigial now with all our modern sanitation and sewage treatment.

Apparently we Americans are considered "puritanical" by our enlightened European brethern in that we often enough wait until the weekend, or at least sun down before we hit the booze.

I heard that we also have the other side of the puritan coin, however - that when Americans do drink, it is more excessive and binging. There's no crazy like Repressed Catholic Letting Loose crazy, is what I've always said.

Whereas I think Europe has more of a "lightly intoxicated at all times" kind of thing that dates back to the peasent classes being soaked to drown out the unbearable monotony of their world sort of thing. Not that that sort of thing is uncommon among rednecks here.

As well, everyone used to be lightly toasted at all times because water would kill you.

I've heard it said, lately by George Will, that, "Beer is Civilization." Its not exactly untrue.

Quite so. One of many reasons to appreciate that whole civilization thing.

As such, of course, our safe water is under a new wave of attacks. Fortunately at least one publication is willing to be the voice of reason.

Dang. It seems there's no part of civilization they won't attack.

For those unwilling to read the article about chlorinated water, the whole issue is about trihalomethane levels in the drinking water due to the addition of chlorine. Here's a snippet from Wikipedia about trihalomethane:

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My introduction to Civil Engineering professor (PhD in microbiology and specialist in water treatment systems) expanded on this. He taught that the chlorine disinfects by reacting with the organic compounds in the outer retaining walls (cell wall, viral casing, etc) of most microorganisms causing this protection to break down. Once this happens, the organism literally breaks apart.

Now, If your drinking water has high levels of trihalomethane, then this is an indication that there is probably a lot of organic matter in the water. It is also very likely that the source of this organic matter is from a large number of microorganisms present in the water (or at the very least, there would be a large number of microorganisms feeding on the organic matter). Even if the levels of Trihalomethane were marginally "harmful", cutting back on the chlorine levels to bring their levels down would in all likelihood be a far more deadly thing to do. The real problem that needs to be addressed in these rare cases is not the chlorine but the high levels of organic matter.

By the way, another nice benefit to having chlorine in the water is that it will readily react with most any heavy metals that are dissolved in the water. The product of this reaction is an insoluble compound that quickly precipitates out of the water. Since the chlorine remains in the water throughout the water distribution system, this benefit is realized even when the source of the heavy metals occurs downstream in the distribution system from the treatment plant (i.e. lead pipes). According to the aforementioned professor, without this benefit the water supplies of most of civilization would be quite toxic and would lead to a far greater number of cancers and other maladies than the trihalomethane "threat."

Most enlightening - that's really even more than the article made out. Thanks for providing it.

Try living in Scotland.

This brings back memories.

When I was 14, the guy who sat beside me in English class used to invite me out to get smashed with him and his mates at the weekend. I declined.

I didn't drink till I was 21 by which time this guy was unrecognizable when his wedding photo was in the local paper.

A guy who worked beside me had been drinking longer than me despite being 9 years younger than me.

Anyway, here is how to handle alcohol:

http://www.dufftown.co.uk/SpringFestival2008.php

http://www.dufftown.co.uk/soswf_autumn_2007.php

http://www.dufftown.co.uk/soswf_spring_2007.php

Ah, you've got the 2008 up now! Your reviews are hilarious, Haggishunter - absolutely wonderful.

There is a festival next month.

All those who want the next review sent to them can pm me.