I'm an alcoholic

my favourite uncle died yesterday at 60 years old. of my mum's 3 brothers, all younger than her, he lived the longest. the oldest died at 50 of a heart attack 12 years ago. the youngest died at 56 of a stroke 2 years ago, he had been suffering from throat cancer and an aggressive prostate cancer, both of which were terminal and inoperable. all 3 of them were drinkers. the youngest was a classic alcoholic archetype and chain-smoker. the other two were respectable, successful men, never drank to the stage of foolishness, didn't drink at home, and didn't drink spirits, just pints, but were in the pub every day of their lives that it was at all possible. you might also call them alcoholics. we have no familial predisposition towards heart disease.

i quit drinking in september. i sort of hate sobriety. i think about drink a lot. when i think about my uncle who passed away yesterday and the way he drank - for fun, socially, having a good laugh, with a pleasant meal, really enjoying life, knowing everyone who drank in the local pub and being part of a community, i find it hard to say it would be better if he had lived a sober life and not died yesterday. it would've been an utterly different life, devoid of many of its chief pleasures. but i know my own propensity for drinking like my other uncle, the alcoholic, who would drink mainly in the pub, but until absolutely obliterated, and would drink at home alone when the pub closed, and was asking my grandmother for money as a middle-aged man, because he'd spent all his perfectly respectable wage packet from working as a joiner on booze.

i wish i hadn't grown up somewhere where the pub was the agora. if id been viennese instead of glasgwegian would this even by an issue?

Tell me about it, jim.

One of my uncle's died last year of prostate cancer. He was one of the few ones who'd stopped drinking and wasn't an alcoholic. The NHS couldn't help him because his kidneys were gone and he had left his condition untreated until it got terminal. I had to explain to mum that although he'd been teetotal for years, he was still chain-smoking rollups and also often buying speed off old dodgy smackhead friends of mine, it's amazing he lived as long as he did taking that shit.

Good exploration of the cultural continuum of alcohol dependency jim

The mother's side have/had it bad (two from six nonfunctional, one functional, one married a fuckin *worldie*) but culturally it's very notable how it has seriously dwindled into the next generation. Quick mental survey of the forty cousins i know of on that side we have only one who would compare and he got it from his father rather than my aunt

Materfamilias herself was, and i forget the exact multiplier, four or five times over the old driving limit the night she burned the house down, and had been out of her mind riddled for at least the decade before that but likelier closer to twice that tbh (my memories of extreme parental drunkenness and the ensuing mess rank among my earliest)

The aul fellas side are very respectable, would drink more like the "better" version you describe- especially the men, fishermen/businessmen who've progressed to a bottle of chardonnay a night (every night) rather than brawling twice a week after vodka binges. The aulfella himself the worst of them tbh.

Of us four boys one cannot/shouldnt drink and took twenty years to know it, one took almost as long to learn how he could and couldnt, one doesnt socialise at all and one never drank, very pointedly so.

Im the one who has learned how i can drink, but thats in the irish context tbf- its not like im the one holding back at a fap or anything.

So yeah, its complicated

And sympathies on yr uncle and luck with the drinking yrself

thanks, deems

Wow.

I'm as steady as she goes (every night), fairly high functioning as things go, and unlikely to make changes. I wish jim and others in this thread the best with their decisions and say that they are probably the correct ones.

Jim fwiw just about everyone I've ever known says that the not drinking thing gets easier and less suckish over time, which has been my experience as well. I no longer think about drinking very much, and when I do it is more a wistful thing, nothing like an actual craving. I sometimes have FOMO but then I remember that because I am only one person living my one life I am going to miss out on most things anyway, so why get too worked up about it.

It's pretty nuts how incredibly drinky western culture is. To be outside of that takes getting used to, for sure.