*sips rum cocktail*
Well, well, well.. isn't this a topic for a Wednesday!
Where to start? Well, I guess from the beginning.
I come from a family where both of my granddads were alcoholics (having survived WW2 will do that to a man, I presume, and no longer try to judge THAT much, however, it has left a generational 'baggage' to claim and eventually deal with.).
It is also very interesting that you bring this up now because the THEME.. yup, I see it, it has been 'actualized' recently and quite insistently requests my attention..
I of course take pride in 'creating my own relationships' with all things in life, but the context is still interesting, to say the least. I have never known any of my granddads personally but from stories, moms dad would get really sweet and generous when he was drunk, whilst dads dad has been known to have run around the house with an axe.. sooooo.. yeah, not so much fun times for my dad growing up. My dad's response to that trauma has been understandable - total prohibition - since in he's eyes alcohol only lets loose all the demons within that need to be held under proper control at all times.
Having heard the horror stories I surely adopted dads attitude to alcohol and surely enough it was absolutely EASY for me. For one, I was too 'boring' to run in the crowds that were drinking, and secondly, one might say the snobbish 'holier than thou' attitude looked quite natural on me.. xD
That was me well into Uni times until I was 'adopted' by the girls (or 5.1.9. as we ended up reffering to ourselves). The primary purpose of the 'adoption' was to ensure that I eat properly, as with all the stress of performing and attempting to appear 'perfect', eating was the first thing to fly out of the window for my not so long since no longer anorexic ass.
I remember for quite a while I was drinking non-alcoholic beverages to still 'fit in' with the group and its activities, but also remain true to MY 'borrowed' convictions. Eventually, however, I conformed to the group. And since we were not going crazy, just a drink here and there, once in a while, I managed to create my own understanding of what alcohol was, what it did, and what were my limits.
Fast-forward to post-covid times and I'm making my own fucking dandelion wine! xD Aaaand I have set the parameters for myself for a drink on a Wednesday and Friday or Saturday, just to stay on the safe side of things and have a structure to hold on to.
I say all things are individual and depend on the context, but it is also absolutely crucial to observe oneself with these kinds of tricky things and never dismiss and ignore the 'ok, I feel my limit' ping. I ignored it once, because I was having too good of a conversation with m31 and had inconveniently labeled my wine 'poison' on that occasion.. let's just say I learned two lessons after that.. never to ignore the ping no matter how interesting of a conversation you're having.. and not to label your alcohol literal "poison" xD
~Josie~
This is the first I’ve ever heard of dandelion wine. And I’m kinda super curious.
have heard that dandelions are essentially a superfood… wonder how much of that nutritional benefit would remain once fermented.
And as i try avoid sugar as much as possible, also wonder what it’d be like if using honey instead.
Yeah, i would tend to lean towards that stance as well. though, circling back to Huberman… he also did an episode on alcohol that covered a lot of good info, detailing some things on its impact on several different systems of the body & brain… not all something I’d prefer to swallow, but probably not best to keep head in sand about either.
That plus some other outlooks… does make me think it’d probably be good to keep taking longer breaks every now and then as that supposedly resets a lot of the damage caused. (Might decide to go another month without after this cleanse, but staying with parents is NOT the place for a longer break as way too much damn temptation here. Haha. :-p)