Explaining to the grandchildren about alcohol

It tastes lousy.

[Aside: Many of us in the Sixties counterculture thought a distinguishing thing was going to be our disdain of alcohol. “Throw away the cars and the bars and the wars.” Alcohol was for people over 30, for fogies. Our pot was better in many ways. Like with so many other things, we lacked perspective on historical Ways, customs, cultural inertia. We were chagrined to find that, by 1980, alcohol was back.]

Even though it tastes lousy at first, adults pride themselves on mastering the acquisition of the taste: a sign of fortitude, being grown up and with-it. The reward is to have access to an intoxicant that helps one relax and feel less inhibited when socializing.

Alcohol somewhat numbs unpleasant feelings, pains, harshnesses of interactions with others, with “reality.”

It fosters pleasant feelings of less inhibition, more freedom.

People can wind up pathologically turning to it for relief … from unpleasant feelings, pains, harshnesses of interactions with others, with “reality.” The grandchildren must understand that in much of reality-life there is unpleasantness, anxiety, pain, even suffering. So relief is a very big human thing.

There are intoxicants and opiates of all kinds. There are temptations to use them pathologically … to the detriment of functionality.

[Religion as a generally-accepted opiate. That’s why, in the old days, blasphemers could face such punishment. The generalized reinforcement-belief in the commonly-accepted religion was so important.]