We’ve all been there. New Years Eve caps that season casually known as The Bermuda Triangle – non-stop parties and non-stop excess, whether it’s liquid, weed or tablet. The holidays are an excuse to say goodbye to the old year and drag the new one in, kicking and screaming.
Some look at it as a time to raise a little hell; have one too many, call it a night, call Uber and sleep it off. Others refer to New Years Eve as “amateur hour”; just another night in the course of endless nights that some take pride in overdoing. The kind of drunk that gives other drunks a bad name – the kind that “professional” imbibers look on with disdain. The kind of drunk who insists on being the designated driver and taking the freeway home.
And to some it’s the end of a slippery slope, where you’ve been good all year, having sworn off this time last year – haven’t touched a drop or even looked sideways at a drug, further proving to yourself and the outside world in general that you’re not one of “those ick people” (alcoholic) and you’ve earned your right to party. And you’re going to make up for lost time.
Some of you will slip under the radar – some of you will fail the sobriety test miserably and some of you will drive straight into a building, a row of parked cars, a family of four or yourself and everybody in the car with you – alcohol at its worst.
A few of those options have instant and perhaps permanent ramifications, while others have no affect one way or the other and that bottle of Scotch your boss bought you two years ago is still sitting in the liquor cabinet, waiting for another solemn occasion to sip.
Aside from those folks, the rest of you no doubt fall into the category of asking yourself “do I have a problem?” It may or may not have gotten worse over the years – it may or may not cause friends, relatives and significant others to tell you to get help. It may cause you to wake up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror and admit “this has gotta stop”.
Alcoholism is rampant – it’s woven into our culture; the culture of wretched excess where too much of a good thing winds up being not enough of a good thing until it turns into a bad thing.
Alcoholism has also been with us since cave dwellers drew pictures of hangovers on walls. It’s only been in recent years that steps have been taken to confront the issue and offer a practical way of dealing with the affects, of getting lives back together and at least offering help.
This episode of the radio series “It’s Your Life” looks at the issue from the lens of the late 1940s where alcoholism was on the serious uptick and discusses the issue, which was something not often confronted on the radio, or even in public.
To get an idea what the world of Alcoholism looked like at the tail end of the 1940s, here is that episode of “It’s Your Life” from 1949.
You might want to give it a listen before you head off to your New Years Eve parties – just sayin’.
