Another illusion?
I went out last night the second time in two days to have a few drinks. While I was doing so I started to think about what happens when we drink. Drinking is what I can talk about since I have no experience with any other drugs.
Alcohol is an amazing thing. We are acting and behaving in a certain way. Having a few drinks changes our perception and the way in which we act. In what state are we in when we drink? I still want to connect that to the assumption that we imagine ourselves to be a certain way. That we have created and idea about ourselves that we call “I”, that we consider to be who we are. Does drinking change the illusion that we have about ourselves or does it bring us closer to the true self to who we really are? Does it pull us deeper into ideas or illusions or does it lift up the vale and enables us to see who we really are?
The Romans used to say “In vino veritas” what means, “there is truth in wine”. What they meant is that somebody who is under the influence of alcohol is much more likely to say what he or she feels that somebody who sober. He or she is much more likely to be who he or she really is.
When you think about it, it makes sense. Alcohol numbs the mind. When we drink we do not think about what we say or do, we just go for it. We do not analyze, we don’t hold back, we are just who we are. For some time we do not think about the future or contemplate the past, we can relax. We can play for without fear.
I have to add that for the longest time I was not a fan of alcohol at all. I did not drink for five years from age 25-30. I had very firm ideas about how bad it is for your body and how much pain and suffering it brings to the world. But since I am trying not to have and fixed ideas about anything I had to let those go as well. Today I can see good sides. I think that alcohol helps people to relax for some time from keeping their guards up, from pretending to be somebody they are not. Besides being hard on our bodies alcohol might be not as bad as I thought it was.
Some of you might wonder about the mean, the angry drunk who wants to knock somebody’s head off as soon as he has a sip of beer. That is a very good point and is similar to the spiritual process. If we decide to open up, to feel more and think less we have to deal with feelings that we have suppressed for years and that will surface. In my case I used to be always nice to everybody often to people who were not nice to me. I was afraid to confront afraid to hurt them if they would not get what they wanted. I never stood up for myself, always put other people’s needs before mine. Doing that made me very angry. I hated myself for being weak, for letting them run over me. But I pushed my anger away to be able to keep on being the nice guy I wanted people to see in me. When I started to work on myself it all changed. I started to listen to my inner voice, started to do what felt right for me. When I opened up I was not able to hold back the suppressed anger either. It has to come out it has to go somewhere. It is not a pretty sate to be in and I am very glad most of that lies behind me. Today I am nice out of strength because I have learned to stand up for myself if I need to.
Is alcohol the right way to deal with suppressed anger? Absolutely not! This is a big downside of it. People drink and get very violent. Husbands beat their wife’s, their children and each other. Is alcohol the cause? Not really, suppression is. But alcohol triggers the uncontrolled release. If our parents would have taught us to be always honest and not to hold back anything, things would be different.
How much pain and suffering is caused by an imagined self that hurts some of us so much that they have to continuously numb their minds to have some relief can be seen in 27,035 deaths from alcohol related chronic liver disease in the United States in 2001 alone.
When I went to the second bar last night there was this pretty but really drunk girl on the dance floor. She could not really stand any more and started to lean on me. I was concerned that she would fall over and hurt herself and asked her if she is o.k. She turned around put her hands around my neck her head on my chest and started crying. Then she started falling again I tried to hold her up but still had my beer in my hand and poured it all over her back and over a few other people at the bar. I looked at her and said, “You should go home”. She was there with female friend who would have not been able to hold her helping her to get out of the place. I carried her outside, got her into a taxi that brought her home.
Why we are not able to be ourselves without having to put something in our bodies to “help” us? How much must our society suffer that young beautiful people like the girl last night have to numb themselves so much that they are not able to stand any more? Is the illusionary self, the ego what fills the bars at night, what makes illegal drugs so popular just to escape for a some time from suffering? To me it is.
"Freedom?". Savalas/Williamsburg/Brooklyn 02-02-08 at 02:00 AM.
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