From Ryan Tamares on Facebook this morning, this mock ad (whose ultimate source is unclear to me), posted in response to Grabpussy’s electoral victory, with the laconic comment: Need.
References in the ad: the tag “I’m a doctor, (Jim,) not a …” (later expanded to “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a …”) comes from various incarnations of Star Trek, first used in The Original Series by Dr. Leonard McCoy (played by DeForest Kelley); the ad’s centerpiece is the name Dammit Gin, punning on Dammit, Jim
And then there’s Ryan’s message, one of many today from people saying they’ll take the edge off the electoral disaster and the unpleasant future it portends by taking refuge, for the moment, in drink. After which we’ll all have to get on with the task of protecting what we can and resisting the tide of fear and anger that’s washing in.
Somewhat to my astonishment, I’m not tempted to be taking a ride on the gin train, for reasons I will now explain.
The drinking thing. My regular readers will know that I’m a recovering alcoholic. Four years ago — the anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks — I ended a lifetime of periodically drinking too much with a COVID-days descent into drinking way too much, Tanqueray gin on the rocks, day after day, until I thought I had to wrest control of my life and stopped, totally. And fell into alcohol withdrawal syndrome, complete with the shakes.
After a stay in the hospital and then a rehab center, I came home with a recommendation for a supportive treatment program (a much vaunted alternative to AA programs, which do not suit me — I know they work wonders for many people, but they’re not something I could do). I was working to recover all sorts of abilities that the alcohol had damaged (much of this recounted in my postings from the time). And discovering that what I thought was a nasty intestinal affliction that would require the services of a gastroenterologist was a relatively familiar side-effect of alcoholism, which then quietly vanished.
But that excellent alcoholism support program turned out, in COVID times, to have a years-long waiting list, so it was up to me to find a way to live alcohol-free. To understand fully that I didn’t want to go back there, that this state was so much better than that one, why would I risk going back there. This understanding is something I had to practice, the way I had to practice familiar routines of daily life and my work to re-learn them.
So I was fore-armed against the lure of gin as pain relief on this awful day. Despite that, I am still astonished that I had not the slightest desire to order a bottle of gin delivered with the day’s grocery order. It just seemed like a bad idea. And it would have deflected me from gearing up for all the bad things about to come my way.
I very rarely quote St. Paul, and I am in any case a non-believer, but this exhortation of his seems appropriate for the day:
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
— Ephesians 6:11 (KJV)
(Meanwhile, The dvds of Looking have come to an end, and I am thrown back into the world.)
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