“Why Don’t You Just Quit?”
It’s unlike anything else, this alcoholism. You watch yourself commit continuous acts of self-destructive. You have a disease that tells you, you don’t have a disease. It’s not an after-work thing; it’s a during-work thing. The days of enjoyment are long gone.
There comes a time in all our drinking careers, and my guess is I can speak for most alcoholics, when we’re asked by a witness, could be someone on the receiving end of our behavior, ‘why don’t you just quit?’ The question is well-intended. I mean, if every time you ate shrimp, you broke out in rash-covered convulsions, you’d probably quit eating shrimp, right? Simple enough.
If I could just quit, I wouldn’t go to meetings or work the steps. If I could just quit, I would trust me. This ‘just quit’ question is often accompanied by tears, wrenching hands, pleading eyes. Or maybe a final warning. Or a perplexed look from friends, if you have any left.
While I was defiant when the question was asked of me by my wife, I was heartbroken when it came from my young son. After so many broken promises, there is no longer a suitable answer for a twelve-year-old. They are too innocent, these children. They’ve stood by, down the hall, just around the corner, listing to the arguments, the screaming. They’ve gone to bed with dad nowhere in sight.
The religious and the righteous chime in also. They’re sure it’s just a matter of getting back in good graces with Jesus. And oh, by the way, they know the way to meet that man next Sunday. They mean well. I’d say they’re about 8% right.
How do I explain it to a non-alcoholic? Analogies are often ambiguous but let me offer one. I joined the Marine Corps when I was 19. I was adrift in a sea of alcohol. Michigan had experimented with a lower drinking age of 18. For that very reason, I more or less flunked out of college. My two minor-in-possession charges earned me 15 days in jail. My moral compass was pointing to the nearest liquor store. I had no purpose, no goals in my life. The only thing I knew was my draft number of 41 was likely to win me a free ticket to Vietnam. It was 1970 and, there was talk of escalation in the war, but judging from the battle scenes on the news, that’s all it was talk.
I was sent to the marine boot camp in San Diego. A month in, our drill instructor announced that Nixon was withdrawing troops, and us ladies would have to find some other war in which to kick ass.
I couldn’t drink in book camp, of course, but I soon made up for it. My two years stateside repairing aircraft missile control systems were filled with 151 Rum and Coke. Then another two years in Westpac consisted of two-month rotations between Japan, Okinawa, Korea, and the Philippines.
I loved the Philippines: hot and muggy with ice-cold beer for $.15. That’s right, $.15. Your $283 monthly paycheck was enough to drink yourself into tremors every night.
And that I did.
The Philippines are directly east across the deep blue South China Sea from Vietnam, where only a few calendar pages earlier, many of my fellow marines went home in body bags. The same Marine Corps. So, here’s my analogy: social drinking, or even serious drinking, is as far from alcoholism as my peacetime Marine Corps life was compared to wartime Vietnam.
I wore the same uniform, worked on the same aircraft, held the same rank, even lived in virtually the same climate. But that’s where the similarities ended. The marines in wartime Vietnam were blown apart by claymores, rockets, sniper fire, you name it.
Those marines laid awake in mud-filled trenches; I slept in a bed. My pupils weren’t a fathomless pitch black from witnessing atrocities. And years after rotating home, I didn’t jump out of bed at the sound of a firecracker.
I’m not comparing war to alcoholism (although some will argue that). War has its own set of terrors. My point is that even though I spent four years in the Marine Corps, I don’t have a frickin’ clue what it’s like to fight a war. To have an enemy lurking in the bush, safety off, finger on the trigger, 8,500 miles from home. I’ve trained for it. I’ve read about it. But I’ve never lived it.
Your family members, pastor, or concerned friends may know the experience of having too much to drink like maybe they did at the last wedding reception or cocktail party.
But when it comes to alcoholism, trust me, they don’t have a frickin clue.
