July 20, 2011 Blog

“I need to warn you. I drink a lot.”

Since I got sober, I am a little insulated from the world of the drinker.  I see the drunks falling down outside the bar next to my meeting on Friday night, guys vomiting in the alley, but I don’t get to watch a week’s worth of drinking in the real world very often.

I did last week.

It was a week of scuba diving in Fiji at a beautiful resort. Three groups of divers, each from a dive shop elsewhere, and then a few stragglers, including us.

At table one, there were the ex-military, faded tattooed and big paunched boys from Phoenix, some with large breasted (or implanted) Mamas.

At table two, there was the tea party crowd from Oklahoma, equally paunched but fewer tattoos and smokers.

And lastly, at table three, four rather ordinary middle-aged divers from Texas, a French Canadian couple travelling around the world, and us.

I knew we were in for an interesting week when the bus carrying us across the island on our way to the resort stopped in a small town half way for shopping and a pit stop. When we loaded back on, we were accompanied by ten cases of Fiji Gold beer for the Phoenix crowd, and seven cases of Fiji Gold and Fiji Bitter for the Sooners. There was a big sign above the driver’s seat prohibiting any beverage on the bus, but caps were cracked and there were several beers apiece on the second half of the journey.

That was just the beginning. The party in the bure(cottage) next to ours, housing the dive shop owner from Phoenix, lasted all afternoon, and the shrill voice of his wife rang out between puffs on her cigarette.

At dinner, I heard the owner tell one of the younger members of the group,

“I need to warn you, I drink a lot.”

Not an embellishment.

I was afraid the party would resume after dinner, but the long trip and the beer meant a quiet night for the sober divers from SLO.

The cardinal rule of scuba is never to dive after drinking. It clouds your judgment and decreases your reaction time in an emergency.

Apparently, that’s one the Phoenix and Oklahoma group never learned. Or chose to ignore.

It was clear from the outset that both groups were on a drinking trip where they would dive rather than a dive trip where they might drink.

It was amazing to return to a world that I once lived in: a world where your social life and activities revolved around drinking.

Later in the week, I got a look at some cross-cultural drinking. A Chinese couple from Hong Kong arrived to do some big game fishing. He was a stock broker who texted through dinner, and she a cute pixie who liked red wine. Totally westernized, he drank Chevas Regal on ice, doubles, and Napa Merlots were her fancy. I watched him down four through dinner and she an equal number. She almost slipped off the bridge over the pool on the way to their bure and we didn’t see them at breakfast the next morning.

The beer was gone midweek and the bar got busy. The two-dollar beers from town became the seven-dollar beers on the tab. There was a lot of griping but no less drinking.

From my sober viewpoint, I felt sorry for folks who had to medicate themselves to have fun and whose social acceptance required inebriation. It’s sad but I am sure that is the way it is for many of our young people today.

You are really out of it if you don’t drink.

That’s a high price to belong.

jh

July 4, 2011 Blog

A NEW APPRECIATION FOR FREEDOM

Yesterday, I helped a friend, Jim Brabeck, conduct a communion service at Juvenile Hall.

 I arrived at 10:15 AM, met Jim, and entered the facility. We surrendered our car keys, went through four electronically controlled doors, and entered the large multi-purpose meeting room.  Fifteen young people entered from different directions, different parts of the facility, and took seats. Watchful staff stood on all sides of the group.

I looked out at the inmates, all clad in green except for a young black man with leg irons in the front row. He was in bright orange. They were not much older than children, and most had a look of sadness and fear. A young woman in the back row sobbed through the entire service, and wrung her hands.

The gospel was so fitting: Matthew: “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” Jim talked about forgiveness and starting over. The audience was attentive.

After the service, Jim asked me to speak. He introduced me as a doctor who ran 100 miles on foot over the mountains, rode the same 100 on horseback, initiated the Liberty tattoo program in our county, and who diagnosed his good friend with melanoma and, with the aid of medication, gave him seven years of good life before the melanoma came back and took it.

I explained that I was a recovering high functioning alcoholic with ten years sober. I gave them some statistics:

I talked about how alcohol affected the centers of the brain that control judgment and impulse control and that’s why people do stupid things when they drink. I asked them if they had ever done anything stupid when drunk and most nodded  “yes”.

I explained that their brains were not fully mature yet, especially those judgment and impulse-control centers. And the tragedy is, I said, as long as a young person keeps drinking, that maturity never happens.

That’s why we see thirty-five year old alcoholics who are emotionally sixteen. That’s why sixty percent of our prison population has a history of alcoholism.

I told them that someday, if they make wise decisions, they may get their freedom back. I told them to never forget what got them here, and if alcohol played a role, that they needed to remember that.  They needed to be honest and consider the cost.

I pray that they were listening and that they will remember. If a single one does, my morning at Juvenile Hall was worth it.

jh