DannoXYZ 

I think I'll keep it here since it's related to the obesity issue. Now the causes and symptoms of alcoholism is a hotly debated topic in research and scientific communities. The rates of alcoholism is 50% for kids with both parents being addicted. This rules out any kind of hereditary/genetic cause for it's not a 100% sure-thing like a dominant trait or a 25% rate for a recessive gene. The mental-health/psychiatric treatment group seems to have a better definition of alcohol-related and induced behavior that's detrimental to one's life. Simple way to describe it without ever having to truly identify a cause. Sure some, if not most if it, is learned behavior and external contributory factors like careers and relationship stresses.

That's why I think it has to do a lot with self-control and I think alcoholics get a bad rap. I've always thought that people tend to put down alcoholics as somehow being weak or that they have an illness or disease. Certainly not by the AMA's definition of a disease. They're reprimanded and taught that they have something incurable and there's no hope for them. Gee, that's really empowering for someone with an addiction huh? Anyway, I've always thought that this finger-pointing and blaming was ineffective and disempowering and the people doing it have no idea what it's like to be an alcoholic. I've always lived by the idea of walking in others' footsteps to truly understand someone before passing judgement. What better way to really know and experience the life of an alcoholic than to become an alcoholic, eh?

So I set out on a quest to become an alcoholic. This wasn't an approved research-project or anything, so I didn't write a thesis with testing-protocols and measurable results. I figured I'd just drink until I was an alcoholic. So I started out increasing my nightly drinking in the clubs, no one really noticed anything different, since I'm the same lively person sober or drunk (right up to the point where I pass out). I backtracked and started Happy Hour earlier and earlier over the course of several weeks. It was great because the party-scene was pretty dead after the dot.com crash, so all the pubs were more than happy to start serving me early.

I increased the martinis at lunch to 3-4, and on some days, I wouldn't even go back to work and would start Happy Hour right after lunch! Started drinking mimosas for breakfast, BAH! Skip the OJ, just down the whole bottle of champagne! I came up with innovative new drinks of old classics like black-russians, white-russians, and my own invention a brown-russian. Long-island ice-teas became a favorite because I get to have triple-shots in those. Making it two different kinds of rum (151+Malibu) and two kinds of tequila with root-beer instead of soda really makes for a smooth ice-tea!

After about a month of this steady +20% weekly increases (kinda like increasing mileage +10% weekly on a bike), I was ran into a problem with having enough room in my belly for the drinks. I had already cut out beer because it caused too much bloating and I didn't like walking around with a santa-claus belly after guzzling a 16-pack. Hard-liquor only from now on. I also slowly cut back on the meals to make room for liquor. I even tried the alcoholic thing with the 1st thing in the morning being booze. Irish coffees were added to my morning mimosas. Lunches were trimmed to small cup of soup with 4-5 martinis, afterburners, tequila sunrises & sunsets. Happy Hours were still my favorite and I found great companionship in Godfather and Godmother drinks (the Godchild was a little weak with a non-alcoholic filler). I got to know the bartenders in the pubs really well and was able to continue drinking after their 2am closing times. Often up 'til 4am when they finally left the place after cleaning up and doing the books.

Problem was, I starting to run out of money, I wasn't working as much since I was out drinking so much. I was thinking perhaps I was getting close to my goal of becoming an alcoholic where it would impair my life. However, I drinking with the boss every single time and he loved it, so I certainly wasn't gonna get fired. And I was building up an incredible tolerance to alcohol and it required more and more liquor to get me drunk. I decided I'd stop eating to save money and that would also leave more room in the belly for LIQUOR! Yay! A win-win solution! My relationships didn't suffer, if anything they actually improved, as my girlfriend was certainly happy that I spent more time out partying with her and her friends.

The other problem was the constant hang-overs, headaches and upset-stomaches I'd have every morning. And throwing up wasn't that much fun either. I kept on thinking back to those stories I heard about sorority bathrooms toilets self-destructing from all the puking the bulimic girls were doing.

After 2-months of constant and daily drinking, I could not get to the point where I CRAVED and WANTED liquor. I threw in the towel and resigned myself to the fact that my experiment failed. I couldn't get to the point where I sacrificed my job, my career, my family and relationships to liquor. Somehow, no matter how much I drank, it never became something that was #1 on my list. If anything, I got really, really disgusted with drinking. At that point, just the sight or smell of liquor caused me instant stomach pains and puking! It was like negative-reinforcement therapy!

So in the end, my experiment with drinking had the opposite effect. I was so completely sick and disgusted with drinking that I couldn't even look at liquor for the next 6-months! I'd throw up at lunch whenever the tray of martinis walked across the room. I'd throw up whenever someone ordered wine at dinner... Eventually, i got over it, I think it was just a mental self-control thing. Today, I still love the taste of liquor drinks like I've always have...

Oh, BTW, during this time, I also lost 5-lbs ! I guess because liquor is fat-free and it's got lower calorie density per pound or volume than a lot of greasy fast-foods.