| The Problem With Drinking Alone |
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Ninety-Nine Bottles Of Beer On The Desk
But for some stupid reason, when people learn you are drinking alone, they accuse you of being an alcoholic. Someone decided that tossing back a stiff drink quietly by yourself was anti-social, and that drowning your lonely troubles in a bottle of bourbon wasn't acceptable behaviour. Who made up these rum-soaked rules? Other people are able to circumvent the stigma of alcoholism by calling their friends on the phone, and talking for hours while they slurp down two bottles of cheap Merlot. Apparently, when you're dialing long-distance you're no longer considered "alone" and the alcoholic label no longer applies. Others think it's alright to drink by yourself if you're listening to your favourite music, or watching a movie classic. After all, you're not completely isolated if you're surrounding yourself in popular culture. But if you're home by yourself, looking at porn and drinking Budweiser with your "free" hand, people think you need counselling. Where is the line drawn on the beer glass of society? If you're drinking double shots of gin and Fresca, but you're in a chat-room with thirteen Internet friends, you're not technically alone, are you? If you're Instant Messaging with your buddy in Boston while you both toss back tequila shooters, you're not exactly drinking by yourself. And what if you're getting loaded every night while you're playing in a persistent online multiplayer game? Is it wrong to have a glass or two of real mead while you're hanging out in a tavern in the World Of Warcraft? If you invited six friends over to your house to play Texas hold'em, nobody would question your alcohol intake, even if you drank yourself unconscious, emptying your guts into the potato chip bowl before passing out on the bathroom floor. So why should it be any different if you were playing poker with those same friends over the Internet? And what if these guys weren't exactly your friends, but perfect strangers you had just met in a Pokerstars sit-down tournament? And what if those strangers weren't even REAL people, but actually computer players? For all you know, you could've been polishing off a mickey of Crown Royal with an overbetting artificial intelligence program. Does THAT make you an alcoholic? It doesn't seem fair. The poet who sits at his writing desk, sipping absinthe from a shot glass to enhance his creative process is considered an eccentric. The novelist who guzzles down a four-litre box of white zinfandel while he feverishly bashes out the next chapter of his critical best seller is glamorized. But Joe Geek who drinks a 40oz bottle of vodka while playing Minesweeper on a Saturday night has a drinking problem. It's enough to drive you to drink.
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