Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Tonight I've got pains in several places, each of which is too minor to warrant Strong Pain Meds, but together they're enough to be distractingly uncomfortable -- and to make it impossible to find a comfortable position in which to lie. For the past several nights I've had insomnia, which in turn is causing additional inconveniences (and given the nature of fibromyalgia, almost certainly contributing to my pain). Right now I'm almost sleepy enough to try to go to sleep. It did occur to me that a little bit of alcohol (a bottle of Skull Splitter, or 50 ml or so of whiskey, or a glass of wine) might be enough to tip me over that line and let me actually fall asleep.

But I'm not really quite in the mood for ale, and I'm really not in the mood for whiskey right now, and I don't have any mead (or any other wine, for that matter) in the house. And I've got this little hangup about drinking alcohol I'm not going to really enjoy -- I guess tonight demonstrates that the hangup extends to what I'd consider medicinal use, as well as ordinary drinking-to-enjoy situations. And I'm really not certain whether or not I'm being unreasonable about this (and if so, to what degree).

One of the roots of this hangup is the decision I made a long, long time ago when I first noticed that there were alcoholic beverages that taste good and alcoholic beverages that do not. I decided in ... well consciously in high school at the latest, but possibly earlier -- certainly the idea was present in some form back when my exposure to alcohol had been a sip of brandy (yum) or beer (yuck) on rare occasions and the nearly as rare very small glass of wine with dinner... Uh, I decided before I was old enough to obtain alcohol legally by myself that I would only drink things I liked the taste of. This led to below average amounts of time spent intoxicated in college, 'cause I can be sort of picky (as anyone who has talked to me about beer knows. (But I did enjoy my share of mixed drinks in college when they were available.) While I never declared that I would also not drink things that I basically like but am not in the mood for -- flavourwise -- at the moment, that does seem to be a pretty reasonable extension, and is how I act.

A less reasonable probable source of the hangup is that because I'm so picky, it took me a long time to find beers that I like, and some of the ones I like can be hard to find (I'm still looking for Mackesson Triple Stout in Baltimore), and I think some part of my mind translated that into a perception of "scarcity". Coupled with the very real fact that with my current finances I just can't afford to buy much alcohol (at least the kinds I'm willing to buy) and that "scarcity" gets even more tangible even though I've got four bottles of Skull Splitter ale in my fridge right now. So I've got this mindset that drinking any of these precious treats when I'm not going to properly enjoy them as a treat feels like a waste. A waste of a precious, scarce resource. This is something that I can identify as not quite reasonable despite some real and reasonable foundations (and some not so reasonable ones).

The thing is, I'm looking at a use here of alcohol specifically as a drug, rather than as a gustatory delight that has its drug nature as a side effect. I'm looking at it as a tool to solve a problem. But my attitudes toward alcohol as a side effect of things tasting good (and to some extent alcohol as a recreational drug, though that's not something I feel much attraction to in general) are getting in the way of that.

And that -- the cross-context hangup -- is what I'm trying to figure out the reasonableness or unreasonables of. In the meantime, it's nearly five in the morning and I'm writing this instead of sleeping.