Hey certain supermarket how’s ’bout you not playing drinkin’ musak when there is a liquor store right there. There might be people who are triggered by that shit….ie alcoholics (me). It’s effin’ hard enough with the temptation right there….but you guys somehow seem to make it harder for us that are trying to abstain.
—sober
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.
So the world has to stop because you’re trying to stay sober? Good luck with that.
What exactly is “drinkin’ musak”? And, how does that trigger you to want to buy alcohol and drink it?
I 2nd Bitch Please…
Really though. That’s probably the POINT of the music anyway. If you can’t listen to a song without it making you need to go to the nearest NSLC and buy a 24, then you should go shopping with ear-plugs in, or maybe even consider never leaving your house at all.
My wife left me, my dawg died, my favorite pick up truck done broke down on me and I have ben drunk fer a munth
Champagne! Champagne for everybody!
I love Bubbles Devere.
IF OP learned some fucking self-control in the first place, he wouldn’t be a ‘victim’ of this ‘disease’ of alcoholism. I am sick and tired of people, especially alcoholics and drug addicts, blaming everyone and everything else for their misery.
Call me Bubbles, darling, everybody does!
I’m sure we can come to some sort of… arrangemont…
Anyway, I think maybe some people aren’t getting that this bitch is more than likely meant to be at least a bit tongue in cheek. Has humour been banned on LTWWB?
I don’t see any tongue-in-cheek humour in this post, Q. Just a sad person with issues.
I’m curious as to what exactly “drinking music” is…
Wow TTFN, wow.
“IF OP learned some fucking self-control in the first place, he wouldn’t be a ‘victim’ of this ‘disease’ of alcoholism.”
Really?
You don’t understand addiction at all, do you?
“I’m curious as to what exactly “drinking music” is…”
One Hundred Beers On The Wall
It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere
I thiinnnkk thhheress shome mor but me n der cap’n hed a loooooooonnd derte lash nite, hic.
“Wasn’t That a Party”
I think you need to find another grocery store that doesnt play this “musak” as you so call it.
Give me a break – I’ve been surrounded by fucking addicts and alcoholics all my life. It’s all about choice, buddy, and I refuse to enable another cocksucker who will suck my emotions dry with their self-serving bullshit. Every fucking one of them took NO responsibility for their actions.
As far as ‘alcoholism’ being a ‘disease’, that’s the biggest crock of horseshit ever.
Geez TTFN why don’t you tell us how you REALLY feel?:)
You’re right TTFN, if you enable them, you and they are fucked.
It is a disease, and until it is treated, there is no resolution.
Your call of ‘horeshit’ comes from being hurt, but it is a disease.
Cancer’s a fucking disease. Cystic Fibrosis is a fucking disease. Alcoholism and drug addiction are caused by an idiotic initial choice to consume a toxic substance knowing full well that the probability of addiction is there. I know of a former crack addict who is on methadone and is going to school for free because she’s a former addict. You know what, she’s still a fucking junky and is skipping school all the time. My fucking tax money is going towards a junky’s free education that she can’t even get off her ass to take advantage of. Addiction’s a disease alright. A horrible social disease.
Couldn’t agree with you more BRoc!
Thank you, BRoc – right fucking on. You don’t choose to get a disease but you do choose to drink.
Treating alcoholism as a disease is a win-win for the medical/psychiatric community from a financial viewpoint. So is fucking ADHD and all the other bogus conditions that have cropped up over the last few decades.
“Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville”
Ahhh, and out comes the “medical/psychiatric community from a financial viewpoint”.
No use discussing facts.
So tell me how the medical/psychiatric community is NOT profiting from treating the disease of ‘alcoholism’ through therapy and anti-drinking drugs? What are YOUR facts?
Why doesn’t the op just bring his ipod out while shopping, and listen to “non drinking” music. You can’t manipulate the whole world to remove your “triggers” for you, but you *can* plan ahead and be prepared in a situation that is triggering to you…
I mean, you don’t see stores closing down the candy aisles for bullemics, or the diet coke aisle for anorexics, do ya?
I think Mat Luthor and TTFN should get drunk and arm wrestle.
I’ll have to side with TTFN on this one. Another line I love to hear is “Alcoholism runs in my family,” like some hereditary bullshit. Show me a family that doesn’t have an alcoholic in it. Love this argument.
I’ll regret this.
The vast majority of those suffering from alcoholism, receive little therapy after the initial consultation, and rarely receive medication.
The “rehab” you see on televison is an abomination and not reflective of reality.
The real medical costs reside in the treatment of the physical damage to their bodies, not the sort of billing that will buy me a boat.
Well, even if the doctors are profiting from treating alcoholics, it doesn’t mean they are not providing real help to them. Doctors get paid to treat illnesses, that’s their job. Unless they are going around turning people into alcoholics or injecting them with the HIV you can’t really imply that the medical community is only treating alcoholism because it’s “profitable”. They are just doing their jobs.
Alcoholism a disease….lol. How about this for a cure – don’t fucking drink anymore.
the mechanism that leads people to get addicted to things like alcohol has a genetic link. Whether or not any of you consider that to be a disease in the classic sense of the word is semantical bullshit.
But that doesn’t change the fact there HAS been a gentic link made. Some people can’t do any sort of drug/alcohol without the risk of getting addicted to it, and other just don’t have the addiction gene and CAN just “have a few” and be done with it.
Peoples brains are wired differently and not everyone reacts the same to drugs or alcohol.
No one wants to take responsibility for their own actions anymore. O.K., so an alcoholic is genetic – well, so is just about every other fucking behavior. It doesn’t mean, however, one has to act on it. I know lots of people who turned OFF to alcohol because of an abusive, drunken parent or spouse. Again, it all comes down to choice, right?
lovinglife, while I agree that addiction, whether drink, drugs, TV, video games or jerking off, has many of the components of a “disease”,
I defintely think it’s a stretch to say there is an ‘addiction gene’. Genetics just aren’t that simple, as if we could somehow “remove” the offender, and all would be well. My understanding is that it is vastly more complicated than that. Our “personalities” and even our physiologies are a result of billions of “interactions” between our genes…hjow some are switched on, switched off – how they interplay with each other…a massively complex process.
If only it were than simple…weed out the “gene” that causes us to be addictive, or violent, or gay*, or conservative, or like the Maple leafs, and all would be well in the world. If only.
* I mention “gay”, lol, only because I think it must be a dificult and trying life to be gay in our world, so why would anyone “choose’ to be…?
…and yet, while there may be a ‘genetic link’ – the catchphrase of the layman, it’s highly doubtful whether there is a “gene” that alone causes one to be attracted to same sex. To state that, is a slippery slope, and will lead homophobic religious right-wingers to start searching for a ‘cure”…
From a sober alcoholic to another, OP.. if you are so easily tempted to drink, just because of some music.. why are you shopping in a supermarket with a NSLC in the first place?
Maybe instead of bitching about how the world isn’t going to change to accomodate us, GO TO A MEETING and learn how to change yourself!
And by the way, to all the people complaining about they’re tax dollars blah blah blah.. AA is self supported.. I don’t get free shit from the government because I liked getting black out drunk! If I did, I’d probably still be out there drinking!
Alcoholism runs in my family. So does the ‘addictive gene’ and I have a VERY addictive personality. Which is why I don’t drink, do drugs and accept prescription meds if there is another way. I agree its a choice. However, comparing drunks and druggies to ADHD or OCD or any other related illness is fucking stupid. My daughter stuffers from ADHD and tourettes (mild form) and is showing signs of OCD. She’s not on meds and I refuse to put her on them because with the right treatments at home (diet, routines, consistency etc) she has and will continue to get better. Those illnesses are very real. Yes, over diagnosing and over medicating but it doesn’t have to be that way if you take the time to learn about it.
I’m terrified to become a regular drinker as my father is an alcoholic and saw how he kinda f-ed up the family. Perhaps there’s a way to get tested for alcoholism?
Agreed virgomom…just because something is overdiagnosed doesn’t mean it’s “made up.” It means that doctors are not doing their fucking job. Why don’t you dicks take a walk in my brain when I, a person in my mid-20s, am at work, and can’t remember something that someone already told me three times, and tell me there’s no ADHD. Yes, it’s a made up word, like all the other made up words we like to call language, but the challenges people with ADHD face are very real.
It’s funny no matter what the actual bitch is about, commenters always end up arguing about their tax dollars and ADHD…
I’d like to know how many times the phrase “my tax dollars” has been posted on LTWWB.
Well, if you asshats would have properly read the “my tax dollars” comment I made, you would see that I made a very valid point, unless you think it is okay to provide a free education to a junky.
I wasn’t specifically thinking of your comment BRoc….just in general. I’m sure I’ve contributed a few myself.
Addiction is a disease but I don’t care what you want to call it. Addiction is a SYMPTOM of much bigger problem. Quitting the drug/behavior of choice is only the first step to getting well but no other steps toward wellness will materialize until that first step is taken. (Luthor knows.)
I feel for those addicted to legal substances and behaviors like booze, food and gambling. It’s so hard to keep your life on track when sabotage waits on every corner and pushed by the regular joe. However, OP, you will find you will develop better and better coping skills the longer you stay sober. Fight the good fight. You’re worth it.
Insensitive spoiled little fucks.
Try understanding for a change.
I spent most of my 55 years trying to understand these fucks. My oldest friend is a hopeless alcoholic who uses everyone within her range – I listened to all her fucking excuses but she never once blamed herself for her bad choices. She doesn’t want to change, simple as that – she loves her blotto life, courtesy of the men who feel sorry for her. She and I had identical abusive childhoods – she’s still whining about it while I’ve gotten on with my life. I am so tired of cop-outs, as we used to call it in the 70s – everything is one big ole excuse these days.
Full disclosure: I’m a sober alcoholic. I don’t waste my time arguing over whether alcoholism is a disease, whether it’s genetic, whether it’s a willpower problem, whether I’ve got depression, and ad nauseam. All I know – and this is the point you’re missing, TTFN – is that when I drink, I really really really like it. It doesn’t matter if I’m happy or bored or miserable when I start. I like the effect of the booze so much that absolutely everything else pales in comparison. When I’m loaded I can rationalize away the estrangement of family and friends, the loss of a job, being homeless, being in legal and financial trouble, and being sick.
That’s the difference, TTFN. When *you* drink your priorities don’t change like that. Booze – obtaining it, drinking it, making sure you never run out of it, and reworking your entire life so you can always be at least half-cut – doesn’t happen to you. It *does* happen to a few people, and it doesn’t have jackshit to do with specific life situations. We still don’t know why some folks like alcohol so much, and that’s where I leave that topic.
Let me say this also. I started when I was in my early teens, in the midst of a supportive family environment, with everything going for me, and I sure as hell at the age of 12 or 13 didn’t have an adult moment before I got offered that first swig from a filched vodka bottle, and ponder “Hey, this could be a bad choice.” And it just so happened that it took me decades to discover a living strategy that kept me content without booze. Take my word for it – when you are still drinking then usually alcohol is the only buddy you have, and it’s the only solution that you can comprehend.
I don’t expect you to understand this. I don’t understand people who surround themselves with addicts and alcoholics either (as you yourself said, it’s been like that for you all your life), when they also have a choice not to, but I don’t presume to know why they do that, or dismiss their problems as fictitious.
Gotta chime in here,
I gave up my old career and moved on to my current profession when teenage kids kept excusing their parents out of (important, crucial) meetings because “Mom can’t make it, she’s sick today”—meaning she had decided that staying home drinking was more important than discussing her child’s future. (While if I decided to spend the day at home drinking I would have been fired—and rightly so—not compassionately excused for being “sick.”)
I’ve been through all the drug/alcohol addicition education (or should I say Holy Writ that no one may question on ANY point) all of it based on the model of “illness” which I do not believe is the true definintion of alcoholism.
Yes, there is certainly a biological component about how the body reacts to alcohol and drugs, but an alcoholic won’t (usually) die from lack of alcohol if they were in a situation where they couldn’t access it—classic desert island scenario. The existence of millions of recovered alcoholics proves this point.
I’ve been around my share of alcoholics and every one of them is exactly the same, with the same tired and excuses and behaviors.
I’ve also got a good friend who is in an increasingly disturbing relationship with a very manipulative alcoholic, and I am fed up with the excuses she makes for him (He doesn’t want her to finish her education because he’ll be lonely while she’s at class, he doesn’t want her to see her friends anymore because they are “judgemental,” and he stopped working so he could sponge off her very small salary because “work is boring and it interferes with drinking. Ha Ha.” (Yeah, he’s a real funny guy.)
So, Mr Muzak, you will find no sympathy from me. Good for you if you’ve stopped drinking, really, I congratulate you on this achievement. But don’t expect the rest of the world to read your mind and know in advance that every little thing out there in the world (music? food? clothes? cars? people who post on LTWWB?) makes you personally want to start drinking again.
so it’s okay to feel sorry for the depressed/alienated/raped/broke/what-have-you and spare your change for them and pay into subsidies for them, etc but no sympathy should be offered to the depressed/weak-in-character/what-have-you who found a (rather unhealthy but CHEAP!) coping skill? hmmm. Personally, I think presumption is the enemy
Kaysumption is another thing to avoid too.
Perhaps you could add something, anything, to THE POST, Fat? Too hard for ya? I know it’s a wee small brain you have to work with but, come on, give us bitches something RELEVANT to chew on. We don’t mind if you break a sweat. Give it your best shot.
I guess the problem is that the “illness” of addiction manifests as “behaviors” that do appear (to the outsider anyway) somewhat controllable, even if the “illness” itself is not.
A person might be biologically prone to craving certain substances, but the behaviors they use to hide/justify/keep their access to those substances cause the most pain to those around them.
I don’t believe in being uncaring or not compassionate, but the non-substance-abusing person(s) can only be expected to take so much. Many, many people each year are harmed or killed or irreparably damaged by the behaviours of alcoholic partners or parents. (Leading, of course, to another generation of people in desparate need of some way of coping with their very real pain. To me, that is the biggest issue in addiction.)
Even if the evidence prooved once and for all the alcoholism was a biological illness, that only gets us so far. What is the best way to treat it? How much “leeway” do we give the “patient”? How much really is is out of their control and how much can they realistically be asked/expected to change?
And how much can the rest of us—non-medical-professionals—be expected to endure when they are threatening us/harming us/destroying our property/ruining innocent lives.
Of course we must always strive for compassion, but self-preservation is often a very real side of this issue.
And, by extension, I think it is important for the people around an alcoholic not to be tricked into the enabling role. If they don’t have the same “illness”, then they shouldn’t be protecting the alcoholic when they alienate their friends, abuse their family, steal money, destroy property, etc., etc., etc.,
I can accept a person who admits they are an alcoholic, and who is making a serious effort at recovery. I can’t accept their friends or partners pretending their’s no problem, and making excuses like “he was just trying to be funny” or “she’s never done that before” or “he doesn’t mean it like that” or “she’ll pay you back.”
As much as I am uncomfortable with the literal equation of alcholism with biological illness, I admit we have a long, long way to go in our understanding and treatment of whatever it is that causes it to happen.
Personally I really like cake. Really really really like cake. When I have cake at home all I can think about is eating it and I don’t care about the weight gain, or how bad it is for me. I don’t care that my boyfriend is finding me less attractive, or that my clothes don’t fit right. Until there is no cake left, and then I go into a horrible spiral realizing what I’ve done to myself and my diet. Does this mean I have a disease?
Ummm, did no one else even see any hint of facetiousness in the OP’s post? It seemed more humourous than serious to me. I mean, he said “musak” for God’s sake!
People Are Stupid: if you really, really, really like cake that much, then you’ve got some sort of problem. If you’re losing jobs because of it, have legal problems because of it, are bankrupt and homeless because of it, and have been to hospital a number of times because of it, then yes, you might have a disease related to uncontrollably stuffing yourself with cake. OTOH, who cares whether you have a cake-eating disease or just need cake to survive? Does it matter?
Despite your attempt at ridicule, your analogy wasn’t exactly all that bad. Seeing as how there actually are people with life-threatening food related disorders. Or are you suggesting that those don’t exist either?
Rubyjane, very intelligent post.
Hey BRoc,
Thanks!
Sorry about the typos tho’!
: )
I’m more saying that while it would be considered a problem, and maybe a disorder, I don’t consider an addiction a disease.