For kuwa qaadka cuna

[xiinfaniin]

March 30, 2009, 10:25 pm

 

Time and the Bottle

By Tim Kreider

 

My years of heavy drinking were roughly coterminous with my youth, and looking back now, it’s hard to figure out which one of them I really miss.

 

The association between the two is not just Pavlovian. Drunkenness and youth share in a reckless irresponsibility and the illusion of timelessness. The young and the drunk are both reprieved from that oppressive, nagging sense of obligation that ruins so much of our lives, the worry that we really ought to be doing something productive instead. It’s the illicit savor of time stolen, time knowingly and joyfully squandered. There’s more than one reason it’s called being “wasted.”

 

Of course time doesn’t stop for anyone; alcohol just keeps us from feeling it, the way it’ll keep a man warm while he freezes to death. It elides the years as painlessly as it does hours; your 20’s turn into your 30’s the same way you’ll look at your watch one minute and it’s only 8:30 — the night is young, all the time in the world — and then suddenly it’s last call.

 

 

I woke up to find myself in my 40’s in much the same way I used to wake up disoriented on friends’ couches at 10 p.m. I don’t feel middle-aged — I Time doesn’t stop for anyone; but alcohol can keep us from feeling it.

 

just feel like I’ve been young a lot longer than most people. This lifestyle also leaves you with some conspicuous gaps on your résumé. I now regret never having played hooky from school, not least because if I had I might not have felt compelled to play hooky from life for the next 20 years. Because it turns out that you can blow off life for as long as you want, but you still have to take final exams.

 

I’m a little appalled at all the time I’ve lost, but then, wasting time wasn’t exactly an unforeseen side effect; it was part of the fun. Of course it was; if drinking wasn’t so much fun it wouldn’t be such a widespread and terrible problem. While responsible people were working their way up their professional ladders, my friends and I were spending whole days eating oysters, drinking pitchers of mimosas and beer, and laughing ’til we wept on decks overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. There is really no drinking half as enjoyable as daytime drinking, when the sun is out, the bars are empty of dilettantes, and the afternoon stretches ahead of you like summer vacation. The gleeful complicity you and your drinking buddies share in the excellent decision to have one more ill-advised round, knowing full well you’re forfeiting the day — you can almost physically feel something lifted from you at this moment, even if you know it will fall back more heavily later on. We used to raise a toast: “Gentlemen — our lives are unbelievably great.”

 

Being clearheaded is such a peculiar novelty: it’s almost like being on some subtle, intriguing new drug.

 

I don’t drink like that anymore. My old drinking buddies fell victim to the usual tragedies: careers, marriage, mortgages, children. As my metabolism started to slow down the fun-to-hangover ratio became increasingly unfavorable. I was scandalized to learn that alcohol is a depressant. And I don’t miss passing out sitting up with a drink in my hand, or having to be told how much fun I had, or feeling enervated and wretched for days. Being clearheaded is such a peculiar novelty that it’s almost like being on some subtle, intriguing new drug.

 

But drinking was also an excuse to devote eight consecutive hours to sitting idly around having hilarious conversations with friends, and I am still not convinced there is any better possible use of our time on earth. Lately, in these more temperate years, I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Henry plays after Falstaff has died; it’s as if, having put riotous youth behind, there’s now a place in life for things like dignity and honor and even great accomplishment — but it also feels, sometimes, as if everything best and happiest and most human has gone out of the world.

 

Not long ago I celebrated my 42nd birthday. The evening started out grown-up and civilized, with Belgian ales and Chinese take-out with friends, but the night took a turn for the sordid and puerile when one of my friends, whose age is the numerical opposite of my own, insisted on taking me to another bar he knew nearby where patrons drink for free on their birthdays. This is the kind of bar I no longer spend any time in, having already logged 800,000 hours in its like: a dark, raucous dive with cheap drafts and shots, loud rock and roll, and dank, graffitied bathrooms. He ordered me a concoction called a “car bomb,” which, through some ingenious evil alchemy, tastes like a harmless chocolate milkshake but is in fact composed of three different neurotoxins. We punched Van Halen and Meatloaf and the Charlie Daniels Band into the jukebox. We played fierce games of air hockey under a black light. We arm-wrestled with girls. It felt just like turning 24. Life was unbelievably great.

 

The next morning I was hung over, and 42.

[Sir-Qalbi-Adeyg]

With everything if you do it to extremes, it will affect your life negatively. Drugs,jaad, alcohol should all be taken in moderation and you'll be alright.

[Paragon]

I don't see anything remarkable in that man's story. One has his hours granted to him by his Creator. How he uses them or abuses them is all that sets people apart. I would say enjoy them in moderation (or what the heck, perhaps to the bitter extremes) and say 'up yours' to all the pretenders on the moral high horse.

 

Anyway, no need for regret. Now you are, now you are not - that's all there is to it. Time is an illusion of a sort.

[xiinfaniin]

Originally posted by Sir-Qalbi-Adeyg:

Drugs,jaad, alcohol should all be taken in moderation and you'll be alright.

 

Drugs and moderation are two words that can hardly be combined. In most cases, one starts drugs (jaad) with that thought in mind, namely to moderate and use it responsibly. But gradually, one becomes addicted to the drugs one uses, and turns into a compulsive user without knowing it. When you see Somali men buying jaad in US, breaking the law and risking a jail time in the process, you see compulsive drug users. Yet when you talk to them, you get a casual acknowledgement of the affliction, but the sufferers never admit the extreme nature of what they do. The actions of such troubled men can be anything but moderate. It’s not the intake amount that determines moderation; rather it’s the resources wasted, the time lost on chewing it, and the illegal process of attaining it that defines what is extreme and what is not.

 

Jaad is a drug. Stop chewing it ya Qalbi.

 

Paragon,

This man has eloquently spoken about the wildness of his past youthful days and drug uses. Perhaps you are a young man to appreciate it.

[NGONGE]

You are wrong, Xiin. I chew qaat very moderately. Takes me hours to finish a single mijin.

 

Seriously though, I have seen and known regular chewers that do it only on weekends and never let it have an impact on their lives. I don't know how they do it though. When I do, it takes me a week to recover the use of my mouth (all that moderate chewing I suppose).

[xiinfaniin]

^^Where do you chew yaa NG ? If you feel comfortable in answering that question, then I will consider my position.

[Faarax-Brawn]

^Horta, Adu,weligaa laamo ma ruugtay?

[NGONGE]

Mostly in London, Xiin. But I once did it on a drive across Europe. Most enjoyable road trip EVER.

 

ps

I was not talking about myself when I said weekends. I have a strict chewing rule: Eids, weddings and funerals only.

[xiinfaniin]

^^Very vague answer, shows that you are not comfortable telling us where you chew. London is a big city,saaxiib .

 

It means you are a green chewer though. Stop it, NGONGE.

 

Waa talo.

[MAXIMUS POWERS]

Xiin, if you lived in the UK you would be a certified 'khat-head'.