Ghosts at the Liquor Store | Hacker News Reader

Ghosts at the Liquor Store

newyorker.com

56 pointshprotagonist21 comments

> My mother and brother had already escaped to the quiet north. We would meet them there. It was so early that Amy and I wore our pajamas, so early that my dad hadn’t yet had a drink. At the end of our driveway, he said, “Oops. I forgot something.” Then a horrible wait in the car for his return and our assessment of him. The children of alcoholics are detectives, alert to the slightest changes in scent, demeanor, and language. What our dad had forgotten that morning was to chug half a handle of gin.

Gosh, I've never experienced anything like this, and enjoy a drink now and then, but if I'd experienced anything like this, I'd understand why you'd want to never be near the stuff again.

Ooooh boy does that romanticize being the child of alcoholics. It's not an adventure. It's not something that inherently makes you a stronger person. Being the child of alcoholics teaches you how to be mentally ill. That's it.

Source: me.

Alcoholism is poison. Slow, creeping, invisible poison in the family, the children, the community. I have never understood how some drugs are absolutely illegal, but alcohol gets a pass.

> I have never understood how some drugs are absolutely illegal, but alcohol gets a pass.

Because the overwhelming majority of alcohol drinkers are able to limit themselves to an acceptable use?

No, not really. There are many recreational drug users as well, they can limit their drug use, yet it's still illegal. The issue with both our statements is that it's anecdata. Here's some data [1, 2]. Alcohol tops the list in terms of harm.

More anecdata about alcohol:

I personally know 2 Dutch people who died from it. One slowly died through his drinking habit, the other one was in a bar in Thailand and OD'ed on it. While he wasn't at a happy place in his live, it was clear that he did not intentionally commit suicide (though his unhappy thoughts definitely contributed to drinking a lot). I've yet to hear someone who OD'ed on cocaine or similar things. I know it happens, but I have yet to see them in my peripheral networks. Unfortunately, it's still anecdata, but it does prove that alcohol isn't harmless by any stretch of the imagination.

Non-deadly anecdata about alcohol:

If we include non-death casualties, then I also know a few people who abused other people because of alcohol. I know quite a few weed smokers, I've yet to see them abuse anyone. I know one person who drinks and smokes and he's only abusive when he drinks. Again it's all anecdata, but please read up on the dangers of alcohol. The sources I cited seem to give some insight.

Alcohol is a drug. People should treat it as such. It's a legal drug, but that doesn't change how dangerous it potentially is. All drugs have wild dangers to them, alcohol included. I drink alcohol often enough myself, but man, it's something to be careful with. Any drug is something to be careful with, even mushrooms (I don't want to explain, I feel I've showcased enough horrible stories as it is, I know horrible stories about any popular drug). All I can say is, if you're gonna use (any) drugs, treat it with caution and respect, which means to read up on it and have strong boundaries on when and how to use it and what to do when shit hits the fan.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/2/24/8094759/alcohol-marijuana

[2] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-...

Many recreational drug users are able to do that. Ask almost anybody who’s actually tried most things and even made habits of them, what they think of alcohol. Alcohol is probably tied with benzos in terms of addictiveness and harm to the user (not as easy to accidentally take too much since our bodies are better at “rejecting” it, but more widely available, and more euphoric and thus more addictive), after heroin and meth. It’s purely cultural that we give alcohol a pass while making many less harmful drugs illegal

Same point could be made for marijuana and some psychedelics. And that's before we get into the actual social cost difference between the drugs. I've never almost gotten in a fist fight when the other party was on MJ or shrooms.

> Because the overwhelming majority of alcohol drinkers are able to limit themselves to an acceptable use?

Weird description for ten thousand traffic deaths a year (many of them innocent, not the alcoholic), being the single largest factor in domestic violence incidents (some of the most dangerous calls police go to), and generally making anyone who lives within blocks of a major bar district absolutely miserable.

The only reason the alcohol industry exists is because they have successfully fought literally any attempt to hold them responsible for the damage they cause to society.

I really don’t think this romanticizes alcoholism. Their drunk driving dad left them at a gas station after they refused to drive with him.

I don't know if I would say it 'romanticizes' alcoholism but this passage definitely raises my eyebrow:

> When we talk about the drinking, Amy says, “That’s why we live on the edge out here.” The edge is familiar. The edge feels right. We have found places where the depths are close, within view, and there, with spirits near, we’ve tried to build calm lives for our own children.

I'm not exactly sure what is meant here, but as someone who is experiencing alcoholism in the family right now it's not really resonating.

That to me sounds like they try to keep their kids away from public displays of alcoholism and stay away from their past where everybody knew they were in a family with a lush. It’s flowery prose just because it’s in a fancy magazine. I don’t think it’s inappropriate

> I have never understood how some drugs are absolutely illegal, but alcohol gets a pass.

Well, we tried it once.

My father served as a role model for me, but not in the traditional sense. He was a mean drunk and would typically go through a half gallon of Gordon's Gin every two or three days. Alcoholism ran in his family and also in my sister (now dry).

I've avoided it by vowing to never become like he was. I never drink hard liquor and always limit my drinking (both frequency and quantity).

I can understand why the US enacted the (short lived) Eighteenth Amendment, but in the end it all comes down to personal responsibility. Some people are better at this than others.

As the son of an alcoholic I could relate to some of this, but I found the writing overly contrived and not endearing or clever as was the intention.

Much of the writing style was also not really my cup of tea. But still, I was struck by a few bits of the imagery, in particular:

> my dad was swimming in the spirits because he was looking for sunken treasure, or at least looking for something buoyant enough to hold on to, a word or sentence, in the sea of his many dead

It's not entirely clear to me what this means, exactly. But I think that's perhaps the point; it trades clarity of meaning for evocativeness, relying on the reader's imagination to do a lot of the work.

> in the sea of his many dead

korean war vet.

I enjoyed it. I think the writing style is a good way of relating memories. I've employed a similar style myself when doing so.

This was unusually well written.

Unusual? Do you often find you don't care for the writing in The New Yorker?

un·u·su·al·ly, adverb /ˌənˈyo͞oZH(o͞o)əlē/

2) to a remarkable or unusual extent; exceptionally. "there were an unusually large number of excellent performances"

So I take that as a yes, then?

I subscribe to the New Yorker and it's one of the best places in the English language to find good writing.

However I made my comment because I thought this story was unusually well written. Given the very vague subject line I felt that comment was useful info for the casual HN reader who usually starts by clicking on the comment thread.

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