Dakota Beacon

Alcohol consumption during the Holiday Season climbs precipitously from Thanksgiving through New Years. Office parties, house parties, bars, and lounges afford ample opportunity to imbibe. At the risk of being a stodgy old curmudgeon, allow me to speak from experience.

Consequently, Christmas and New Years bring the best of times -- and the worst of times. Family and friends gather for fun and to socialize -- and drink. People visit and exchange gifts -- and drink. Folks ring out the old year and ring in the new -- and drink. Throughout mankind’s history, consuming alcohol became integral to social and religious celebrations. If a substance could be fermented it has probably been distilled and consumed for its exhilarating effect.

Whether celebrating events, enhancing the warmth of fellowship, or just escaping the daily routine, the net effect is the same. A drink or two instills euphoria and release, a sense of soft giddiness and exhilaration. More alcohol eventually gives way to lowered inhibitions which, in turn, affect good judgment and prudent behavior.

Aside from a hangover, most consumers of alcohol exhibit no physiological harm from their drinking. These folks ingest the alcohol and process it quite normally. After a few drinks their body reacts to the alcohol and begins to shut down. Some feel sleepy; others feel tipsy, dizzy, or even ill. Enough is enough and the over imbiber stops drinking.

Some drinkers fare poorly. Come New Years Day more than a few people stare through bleary eyes at the carnage they have created while others pick their way through the wreckage of screwed up lives. Gilt-driven New Years resolutions might go something like this. Reminder to self: Go easy on the booze in 2024.

There is an unfortunate few, roughly ten percent of the drinking population, who cannot process ethyl alcohol normally. These folks become candidates for alcoholism. For them, a greater quantity of alcohol is required to achieve a “buzz.” Beware the person who throws out the challenge to “drink everyone under the table.”

The Holidays hold in store a variety of pageants. Intended as a joyous time, the Holidays become hell-on-earth for those enmeshed in the life of an alcohol abuser. This drama of the co-dependent in relation to the drinker works itself out. All who know and associate with these people can see what is happening even if the players themselves cannot. This becomes a dangerous performance and the more closely intertwined the actors become, the more they risk being harmed emotionally or even physically.

As this drama plays out, it becomes an ugly dance between the alcohol abuser and the co-dependent people surrounding him or her. The actors are real people speaking their lines on cue as if scripted. Each person portrays their own struggling relationship with one another.

While alcohol abusers practice the fine art of denial, those people closest to them learn to survive by employing their own form of denial. Just as the alcohol abuser denies their problem, so too, the co-dependent denies their own problems with the abuser. They seek protection by not risking a rupture in their dysfunctional (or, as they see it, “normal”) relationship with the heavy drinker.

I once discussed the issue of drinking with a young pastor full of wisdom beyond his years. His comment made a lot of sense. “Drinking may not be prohibited legally or morally,” he said, “but consuming alcohol has never made an individual a better person.”

Where there is help there is hope for both the alcohol abuser and the co-dependent. Help is readily available to anyone willing to acknowledge they have a drinking problem -- or to any person willing to acknowledge they have a problem with an abusive drinker close to them. Any doctor, pastor or social worker can assist in finding the right help. Just ask.

Just ask? That might be the greatest challenge of all. Asking for help assumes that a person will admit to his or her problem in the first place. Transcending that start point they must then choose to do something about it. Robert Frost’s poem illustrates that struggle of choice.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).