How has the coronavirus affected your personal life?
- Thread starter fishhead0103666
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Sounds like a decent way to dull the pain.
The government is banning Alcohol sales due to the number of people that end up hospitalised for alcohol-related issues. It's quite a problem here.
The government is banning Alcohol sales due to the number of people that end up hospitalised for alcohol-related issues. It's quite a problem here.
No Alcohol?
I just had some dental surgery today. I've been bathing an inflamed tooth in fine scotch whisky for 3 days, waiting for my dentist to return.
We had Listerine of course, but it was Christmas.
And the scotch was 12 years old.
I'm sorry that you had to use a 12 year old whisky as a pain killer!! Almost sacrilege, lol.
Hello; My country tried this back before my time, in the 1930's I think. Lasted a few years and spawned a black market for alcohol sale and created some powerful crime outfits. Perhaps a modern analogy could be how the "war on drugs" has fostered the powerful drug cartels. Anyway this sort of repression of alcohol is hard to do. The alcoholics will do whatever possible to get their particular fix.
Having known a number of alcoholics, family and otherwise, it is difficult to picture how this can work. My worst addiction was tobacco, which was very, very hard to overcome. I did so back in 1979 and today cannot stand the smell of burning tobacco. I do not know about alcohol or the other drugs in terms of how hard it would be to give them up, but have seen how far the drunks I have known will go to get a drink.
Yes full on prohibition is not working, people sell their stocks BUT at the end of the day it keeps emergency beds open for COVID patients. We had this earlier in the year too, when virus cases dropped, alchohol was sold again. It's a sticky situation!
Hello; I get the idea behind this. Sort of sounds like a move the authorities in one of our big cities made a while back. That is the ban on large soft drinks which have lots of sugar. Sort of a notion that since there is a health crisis of one type you ought not to do things that might put you in need of medical attention. I guess the same sort of argument could be made against any number of risky behaviors that might have someone wind up in an emergency room bed. Maybe a ban on snow skiing or car driving or working on a roof or fill in some other risky behaviors. Not that all snow skiers or all car drivers or all roof workers will wind up in a hospital bed, but some do. Same for most drinkers I guess. While some drinkers do wind up in a hospital bed, most do not is my guess.
Interesting how a particular behavior is targeted by authorities. Makes me think of the so called "sin taxes" on things like tobacco or the ban on sugar drinks because some authority thinks of them as "bad" behavior. No doubt about smoking or too much sugar being bad in a number of ways. It is just, to me, a bit too specific along ideology lines rather than being targeted at any behavior which may have people wind up in a hospital bed.
I have begun to wonder if this covid19 virus is being used as an excuse to see how far things can be pushed on a number of fronts, not just hospital beds. It seems every few days I hear or read about some sort of ban or similar thing which does not always seem to be logical. Back to the drunks for a moment. Somehow a simple ban on the sale of alcohol, even if temporary, does not seem likely to do much about alcoholism. I may be wrong but imagine a true addict/alcoholic will have some medical issues if denied their drug of choice for long. Not the casual drinkers, but the true alcoholics.
It would be interesting to know how many people wind up in a hospital bed due to drinking compared to other behaviors that cause people to wind up in a hospital bed.
My wife is what's known as a "functioning alcoholic". How she got herself to that stage is a long drawn out story for another day.
A couple of years ago she cut right down, well her hand was forced really due to strong medication she was on at the time. During her "detox" period she became extremely ill and went to the doctors, who, at the time weren't aware of her excessive drinking. When it all came out her doctor was staggered and told her she was going through acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms. He took her off the medication and told her to start drinking again, a caveat being that I "managed" her drinking. That's one of the reasons a hobby of mine is winemaking. Shop bought wine, in the quantities she drinks it, per annum, costs an absolute fortune. Making it myself is a fraction of the cost, and I know exactly how much I make myself so I can monitor what is a very tricky situation.
Anyway, what i'm saying is, alcohol bans may very well reduce the cases of people going to hospital on domestic abuse or binge drinking related cases, but on the other side of the coin could very well put the "hard" drinkers IN hospital due to the acute withdrawals involved. I witnessed it first hand. And heavy drinking is rife, people may not realise they even have a problem until their hand is forced and the alcohol is taken away.
Hello; My father was an alcoholic as was one of my good friends. These two I was around a lot so know the story well. Others such as uncles and cousins were also so I know of them second hand.
I was lucky in a twisted way. I use to get bad migraine headaches. The kind that lasted for days sometimes. Turned out alcohol was a strong trigger. Being in the family I was in, I tried to do as the others did which was to drink. I could not understand for a time why I got such bad hangovers. The headaches got worse as I got older and more frequent even without drinking. Other triggers became known over time. In my teens the first bad headache happened one night when I was driving. The brite lights from on coming cars would hurt my eyes. The headaches were rare in my teens and twenties unless I had been drinking, so I drank less and less.
In my late thirties and up to my 60's the migraines were diagnosed. A headache of some intensity every ten days to two weeks. Not all severe, but severe ones often enough. When I had one it was into a dark room and rest for an hour or so at first. Eventually they got to lasting for days sometimes. In addition to alcohol there was smoke, some smells and maybe even bananas. I could drink one beer or eat one banana and be ok, but two beers or two bananas might be enough to trigger a migraine. I also think stress from my job was a trigger sometimes as well. So it takes me over a year to drink a case of beer and I do not touch hard liquor or wine. Wine is a worse trigger than the other alcohol.
As I got older the migraines eased off and eventually have stopped. I still get headaches, but the ordinary sort, that seem mild. If any have migraines it may be hard to find anything good about them. For me at least they may have kept me from becoming an alcoholic.
Wish I had some secret thing to tell you that might help your wife, but I do not. I know how hard getting off tobacco was for me, but can only guess about alcohol.
Best wishes.
My wife's situation is, up to now, a very manageable one, as I said, she is a "functioning alcoholic". It's funny how the "experts" come up with these "labels" for anything outside the norm. As time goes by she's not getting any worse, which we're thankful for, knowing how destructive alcohol can be, but nor is she getting any better. My only concern is time. As she gradually ages her body will no longer be able to process the amount she consumes and i fear things will deteriorate.
And trying to address the situation by sitting her down and talking to her just does not work, we end up rowing. Mention the word acoholic to her and she blows up, she just will not accept it. Soften it a little by putting "functioning" on the front and that label she seems to accept better. They say the very first steps in rehabilitation for an alcoholic is for them to accept they have a real problem in the first place.
My wife doesn't drink the really hard stuff, only wine, nor does she ever drink in front of the kids, or go and sit on the local park bench with a bottle in a brown paper bag. She dosen't have the urge to drink first thing in the morning, nor does she hide alcohol. Her daily routine is very much family orientated, you'd never guess in a million years that when the kids are in bed of an evening she drinks like she does.
Alcohol, and tobacco for that matter, both completely legal, are far more dangerous than any of the "modern" illegal drugs.
But...does it? Prohibition doesn't stop drinking; it simply makes it illegal, which simply encourages criminal activity, which in turn results in violence which certainly sends people to the ER or the morgue. Prohibition is a knee-jerk reaction, a bid by the government to maintain and expand its control of the populace. "Look at what we are doing! It's because we care! We want what's best for you...and we know better than you do what that is!"
But...are they? Certainly, they are dangerous...or can be, if used excessively or in an unsafe manner...but that caution applies to many, many things in life. Drunk driving kills a zillion people...does that mean that the answer is to outlaw drinking? Or to outlaw driving (which makes more sense in some ways and from some perspectives...)? Perhaps we should outlaw red meat, tall buildings, motorcycles, pet dogs...all of which contribute to unnecessary deaths, if used imprudently. Don't even get me started on guns...
Gotta be careful with this one...it's way too easy to have the paranoia label attached to yourself when you espouse this idea. But it is clear that the government has only one real goal, and that is to remain in power. They don't do anything for the good of the people, their target is the good of the state...i.e. them. It is undeniably in the best interest of the government to keep the populace frightened and powerless, and the best way to keep them powerless is to slowly, surely erode their freedom to make choices. So they make the choices for the people; they are always testing the limits of what they can "sell", what they can "get away with", and each success makes the next one easier to accomplish. And, of course, they get to use our money to pay for the propaganda they feed us...
Covid19 is real, no question, and there is no justification for the tin-foil-hat types who claim it's a government-created hoax to grab power. And government efforts to battle the virus are real as well; no point in governing if the country falls apart and/or goes bankrupt...but assuming that what they are doing is the correct solution is dangerous and lazy.
But during this pandemic, just as at all other times when something terrible happens...if you seriously believe that there are not well-orchestrated efforts being made by the government to take the best possible advantage of the situation to strengthen its control and to remain in power...then you just haven't been paying attention to the world around you.
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