Ranting about Alcohol

One of my goals this year is to be more accepting of people. As if on cue, within a few weeks I realized pretty quickly where I draw a hard line...

I can't stand drunks.

The only way I can tolerate drunkenness is if I get drunk myself. And I've acquired a distaste for alcohol so that's not gonna happen any time soon.

I think about somebody like Christ, looking out at all his followers. Loving the prostitutes and lepers and outcasts of society. For some reason this seems significantly easier to me than accepting and loving drunks. Maybe Jesus loved them, but from afar. Like arm's length.

By "drunks", I don't necessarily mean alcoholics. Alcoholics are people who are struggling with a difficult issue.

I mean people, alcoholic or not, who are actually drunk in the moment. In a way, I feel like "they" (the drunk person) doesn't even exist, and I'm wasting time interacting with them. Because I'm actually interacting with a bottle of vodka, not an actual person.

I've worked in the hospitality industry and have had to deal with a lot of drunkenness. This is partly where my bias comes from. I've also dealt with a lot of people who were high from weed.

I tell ya, I LOVED people who were high. At least they didn't start fights, usually tipped well and weren't aggressive. They were also respectful.  In contrast, I really, REALLY did not like serving people who were wasted.