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This isn’t culture war for today. It was between roughly 1918-1930’s. It’s short and about why he quit drinking alcohol. In my opinion he hit all the key points on the subject, his logic is correct, and wrote it in a very concise way.
He does seem to miss drinking alcohol. I have to agree as a mild alcoholic he’s correct. I think he’s also correct that cannabis isn’t the great substitute society now claims it is. Shrooms I am far less sure on.
It’s not culture war today but I’ve grown a lot of respect for the prohibitionists as being basically correct. I also wanted to post this as I felt like it’s a good example of fantastic writing.
https://pmarca.substack.com/p/on-pausing-alcohol?r=h8x
Edit: should we either more explicitly allow less culture war subjects or have another thread. Sitting on an Afghanistan article I found that was good journalism but it’s not heavily culture war
My father was a serious alcoholic (like had a hard time holding a job down and our family lost a house) kind of drinker. This experience has given me a very negative view of the drug relative to some of its alternatives. For instance, there were two relatively pleasant years during my teens when he mostly stopped drinking and actually acted like a typical dad. During this time he taught me how to ski, helped me with my homework (which was something that had literally never happened during the rest of my childhood) and did other typical dad things.
Eventually he landed himself in rehab and we later discovered that he had been addicted to (or at least using regularly) hydrocodone for most of that time period. I still don’t really know what had happened (I think his doctor may have just cut him off, this was around the time they tightened up prescriptions or perhaps he just didn’t manage his tolerance effectively, it’s my understanding that it’s basically impossible to use opiates regularly without developing physical dependence issues). I still really don’t know how about the fact that my two most pleasant teenage years coincided with a time when my father was substituting opioids for ethanol.
I have spent a lot of time wondering about how he rationalized it to himself. He is actually incredibly sharp and was once quite handsome.
I also wonder about myself. I have tried getting drunk a couple of times and I really didn’t enjoy it. I only ever drink when I feel the social setting requires it and then usually as little as possible.
Basically the only drugs I have ever liked are stimulants and running (and especially running on stimulants). I have had adhd (diagnosed as a child) but I really don’t know if I believe that the pathology is a real thing. I would unquestionably be less successful on almost every meteric if I couldn’t legally take vyvanse. I tried being unmedicated my first two years of college which were a total train wreck. I had a high level of self loathing and insecurity mostly related to my relatively low levels of academic performance and lack of friends.
I eventually went back on stimulants, my grades improved substantially, I made more friends and got a masters degree. now have a high paying job which I love and my life is better than I ever believed it could be. And at times like this I ask myself if the stimulants helped (and continue to help) because they make it easier to focus on things other than my various emotional traumas (essentially making it easier to live in the present). If I had had a more functional family would I even need to be on them? Or is, it the case that some people are just genetically predisposed to be addicted to something. If I hadn’t been given prescription stimulants would I have become addicted to something else instead. Or put another way, if my dad had been given Ritalin as a child would he be more like me today? Do you fix an addict by finding the correct drug?
I can relate a lot to this. Minus the 2 years where your dad was "sober". My dad basically had a Coors Light in his hand every waking moment he was at home. And driving. And golfing. He'd have me fish them out of the cooler in the back seat of the car and pop them open for him. Or cover up the open can with a towel when a cop drove by. Outside of small moments like that, I have vanishingly few memories of him being a dad the way you hear about other dads. I don't remember ever playing with him. I remember begging him to teach me things and him never doing it. I remember riding in a old pickup truck with him because that was fun and adventurous. But I mostly remember being afraid of how often he'd fly off the handle.
In 2007 his liver failed and we lost him. Although the cause of that turned out to be a smidge more complicated than the drinking. But it certainly didn't help. I know he strived to be better than his father, and in many ways he succeeded. I suppose you can only ask so much from one man when it comes to changing generational patterns.
Addiction is shot through my family. Both sides. My mom partook of box wine to my dad's Coors Light. One of my uncles also had his liver fail after a divorce. I have a cousin who's addictive personality manifest in literally everything that passes through his life. He also is no longer allowed to drive.
I don't know how I lucked out, but to whatever degree that sort of compulsive addiction is genetic, it missed me. Sometimes I drink when I find a drink I like. Then I go long stretches completely without. I smoke a cigar on the weekends when the weather is nice. But I typically pack that habit away for the winter, or I run out of cigars in my humidor and just plain don't feel like getting more. I have a sweat tooth, but try to moderate it as best I can. I make scones once a month for the family.
When I do drink, I try not to drink in front of my daughter. It just feels wrong. One day when I asked my wife to grab some beer when she was out since I hadn't had any in a few weeks, and my daughter said "Daddy needs beer", something in my heart broke a little.
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