Dakota Beacon

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 celebrate and exchange gifts -- and drink. Folks ring out the old year and ring in the new -- and drink. Throughout history, consuming adult beverages has been integral to celebrations.

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.

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 mild euphoria and release, a sense of soft giddiness and exhilaration. More alcohol eventually gives way to lowered inhibitions, poor judgment and imprudent 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 they stop drinking.

Some drinkers fare poorly. Come New Years Day more than a few people stare through bleary eyes at the carnage they created while others pick their way through the wreckage of screwed up lives. A gilt-driven New Years resolution might go something like this: “Reminder to self -- Go easy on the booze in 2016.”

There are 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 challenges to “drink everyone under the table.”

There is a counter-part to the heavy drinker. Intended as a joyous time, the Holidays become hell-on-earth for those enmeshed in the life of an alcohol abuser. This is the drama of the co-dependent in relation to the heavy drinker. All who know and associate with these people can see what is happening even if the participants cannot see it for themselves. It is a dangerous drama and the more closely intertwined the participants on stage, the more they risk harm 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 relational struggle with the heavy drinker.

While the alcohol abuser practices the fine art of denial, those people closest 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 may be the hardest part of getting help. Asking for help presumes a person acknowledges a problem in the first place. Robert Frost’s poem illustrates the struggle to acknowledge:

“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 P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).