No, it’s not “I need a new drug”, I’m not Huey Lewis & The News. I don’t want a pill or a powder. I want a new alcohol-like substitute.
One that doesn’t cost too much, taste too bad, one that’s yeah, just right. But I DO want it to make me sick if I take too much, penalize me if I over indulge, or do stupid shit.
Alcohol costs too damn much these days. Beer is $10 a sixpack now! Whaaa? The good stuff, the drinkable IPAs, that is. Sure, I can suck down boxed wine, but hell, the stigma and haughtiness of drinking wine — nope. And drinking the tall, dark, transparent, amber, glorious hard-stuff, whiskey, bourbon, scotch… I’ll do it, but damn, a bottle might last a week.
No, I need a new, designer alcohol, created by bio engineers and chemists to be effective, debilitating, short lived, tasty and cheap.
Why?
Because I’m a sacrificial sot.
What does that mean? This is what that means. It means I hereby sacrifice my life working a job I hate, for an industry I despise, eight to ten hours a day all so that the people I love can continue to exist, get educated, and hopefully pursue better lives than me.
“Oh, you hate your job? Well, quit!” WTF! I can’t quit. I have to keep doing what I do in order to pay the thousands of dollars a month bills to keep this tiny family-engine running. If I were to quit, go off into the wild, live my dream life, the three or five or eight people who directly (and indirectly) rely upon my income, my sacrifice, would perish (or at least suffer considerably).
And everyone who says otherwise is utterly full of delusional visions of a nonexistent lifestyle.
So, to endure my servitude (more like slavitude) (which I accept fully) I need temporary nocturnal divestiture of my responsibilities. And I access such a release through the application of a simple chemical compound known as ethanol.
But, for some reason, the stuff has grown expensive and frankly, entangled with too many societal caveats of acceptable behavior. Fuck that. I just want a new alcohol. One that will cut through the sticky pop-culture, inane, seething world and erase, for a time, my worries of said world.
Is that too much to ask?
Apparently.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
I saw the “whiskey” tag on the side of a recent post and just had to go looking.
Great post. It really annoys me when people say “then quit!.” “Wow! Thank you! I have not thought of that!”
Maybe you should become an Instagram influencer. Wait, I think that’s so 2019. Now, TikTok’s where it’s at. You can do it!
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Hahahahhaha! erase the seething world of slave-itude. i write dumb ass flash fiction to distract me from my fucking job too.
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“so that the people I love can continue to exist, get educated, and hopefully pursue better lives than me…” Yeah, that totally broke my back until I said fuck it and flushed it all down the toilet. My wife refused to divorce me, but now she works and I jerk off all day. And, btw, I just switched to weed from alcohol now that it’s legal in CA. No judgement upon which one I prefer however. Just sayin’
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That is another good option. But I get stupid silly on cannabis. (Grew/smoked copious amounts in my 20’s.) But, yeah, some of the affects would be nice, and the whole grow-yer-own is an option which would make it nearly free.
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Do it. Bring comedy back to your life. Step on back to your 20s before it’s all gone.
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You could make it yourself. It would take a bit of a learing process to get it right, but I think you can do it π
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Good point. Been there. It’s a PITA. But if I had the room, fridge, and access to the raw ingredients — I’d be all over that.
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Cary Grant. The angel Dudley in “The Bishop’s Wife.” He had that drink. An endless bottle of sherry that warms and lubricates but doesn’t intoxicate. I had to stop drinking wine. I became a snob. I have never been able to drink to effect without disastrous results, but taste? If one glass is it, drinl the good stuff. IPA? Children’s beer? I know it was a Bit of Brit invention to keep beer they couldn’t brew in India for some reason, but still. Bitters, right? What’s the pub line? A pint of best bitters? Dudley. Channel him, find the good stuff.
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I’m up here in the BeerHeaven (Portland OR) and, yeah, I’m a beer connoisseur, of sorts. Love the deep stouts and rich ales. So, it’s not technically beer. The IPA moniker (hops is antiseptic and the higher alcohol did preserve the brews on their trips around the horn), is a simple handle to indicate a better tasting suds.
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Black or amber lager. Heavy beers make me fart in my sleep in the chair I was sitting in when I drank one.
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[scribbles note down in journal, no dark beer for Phil, unless outside in brisk wind or around campfire.]
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Haughtiness of boxed wine? Really?
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Yeah, yeah. But $15+ for 3 glasses? No way. And once you pour it into a glass…? I’m talking quantity here, or potency + cheapness. I’ll drink a bottle once in a while, but hell if I can afford it like the habit it is.
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Try speaking to your local bodega. We get a very pleasant Spanish table wine for 5β¬ a litre, but there’s a 30 litre minimum purchase π
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I really do drink a lot of beer, because I enjoy it. I drink a couple of beers after work, before dinner, most nights. A couple more than a couple if I stop and have a couple with a friend before coming home for a couple before dinner. On Thursdays I’ll drink a solid six-pack in the late afternoon while doing house chores and such. On Saturday nights I’ll drink a good nine or ten of them while running an RPG with my wife (lo, these 25 years of continuing adventures). More than that if we go out to a party, instead.
On Sunday, I’ll drink a bundle. “Church” in the morning with the gang (this week, 10 of us, with almost an even gender split), and then sporadically throughout the day as the mood strikes. This will either be while (a) watching football, half the year, or (b) doing more chore things.
Sometimes, I will admit, “church” will last all day if we’re all in a Sunday Funday mood.
But I only drink light beer. I don’t like bitter stuff (low, low IBUs, like Coors Light or Bud Light or even Keystone Light will work) and I don’t like to pack on a bunch of extra calories. I’m a pretty high-functioning, methodical beeraholic, then. π
I don’t need a new drink but I probably do need a bit of a break. Maybe after the Super Bowl. π
Cheers, AM, to a life well-spent with the things that we love. π»
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When wine comes in a box, it is immediately divested of its potential haughtiness. But boxed wine is not the answer, of course. We’re trying to have a civilization here. I think the new alcohol you seek goes by the brand name Vicodin.
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That made me laugh out loud. π
I actually have a co-worker, older gent, who goes through a box of wine a night with his wife. They love the stuff. Nobody alive would call him haughty, though the word cantankerous might fit nicely. He’s the best damn appliance tech I’ve ever known.
My mother loved her boxed wine, too.
That’s all I have. Cheers. π
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Yeah, box wine does lose that certain panache, but, walking around with a wine glass – who knows where it came from?
Vicodin wipes me out. And are really hard to come by now.
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