First the man
takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man. –
Japanese Proverb.
For those who
don’t know: I am a recovering alcoholic. Seven years I drank – sometimes heavily,
sometimes light; but mostly, often. I professionally played a real life Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, concerning only with work, the drink, and family. I
managed. I flourished. I suffered. And ultimately, I evolved. From what
foolish, dumb, and impossibly stupid years of my life that I wasted, I am now
trying to make the best of bad choices.
What I learned
would take eons to explain to anyone being of myth, the present, or the terrestrial
– take it, though, to be from the heart when I tell you that it isn’t easy. I have
zoomed through life not really paying attention to new trends and the big
happenings on our dear friend, the internet. I still laugh at some memes that others think
are past their prime, and I will watch the Honey Badger video, laughing my ass
off (LMAO!) every time. So when I am attempting to network my research, my
writing, and my ideas, I find myself asking myself; I should know this already,
right? Alas, my tunnel vision years and self abusive habits clouded any foresight
to what has passed by.
So I am deciding
to not research what 99.9% of you already know, but instead, to see how substance
abuse and alcoholism affects the rest of society when it comes to the internet
and social media. However, first we need to pay homage to our dear friend
ketchup.
Documented
findings date ketchup to the mid 1690’s in China. The sauce was originally comprised
of pickled fish and spices, called kôe-chiap or kê-chiap. A century later, it
was seen in Malaysia, with their word for it as Kechap, and when British explorers found it, ketchup was coined.
One early
recipe dates basic ketchup back to 1801 in America. This is by Sandy Addison,
later to be published, and even later still, to die from a nasty spill down a
flight of steps, slipping on an empty glass ketchup bottle. I don’t have any
claim to that last fact, but one can dream.
- Get [the tomatoes] quite ripe on a dry day, squeeze them with your hands till reduced to a pulp, then put half a pound of fine salt to one hundred tomatoes, and boil them for two hours.
- Stir them to prevent burning.
- While hot press them through a fine sieve, with a silver spoon till nought but the skin remains, then add a little mace, 3 nutmegs, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper to taste.
- Boil over a slow fire till quite thick, stir all the time.
- Bottle when cold.
- One hundred tomatoes will make four or five bottles and keep good for two or three years.
Now, that’s a lot of damn work. I have cooked for a long time – both professionally and for my family and friends – and I love to create as much as I can from scratch, but with what conventional equipment we have today, to make this on your own would seem unnecessary still.
For
our red, thick and sweet condiment today, we sail back on the time waves of
gnarly 1906 with pure food and drug act. It was signed in and challenged food
manufactures to find safer preservatives for foods. At the time, sodium
benzoate was the chief preservative in condiments, and would make the ketchup
and other dressings alike to be runny. Enterpanuer Henry J. Heinz created a
recipe that excluded the usage of the acidic additive and created a healthier,
full bodied condiment that is known worldwide. Today, Americans consume 214,041
gallons of the tangy, thick sultry sauce. That’s over seventy eight million
gallons annually… holy shit.
But
for alcoholism, I wish I could measure the gallons to at least a fraction of
that. Annually, Americans are drinking less and less, but the average of liters
per adult (an “adult” is seen as 15+ on most statistics) is roughly eight and a
half liters of alcohol, with beer being the most popular beverage of choice. We
are however, not anywhere near those lushes over in Moldova, who consume closer
to nineteen liters annually.
For
me, alcohol was easy. My dad drank, my grandfather, who I never knew, drank,
and so forth. I come from a long line of seasoned boozers, from my father’s
root spreading back to Tennessee moon shiners. But it has been my number one
challenge in life so far to overcome. On a day to day basis, there are close to
eighteen million people dealing with alcoholism in some way or shape. Social
Media, for one, has been an invaluable aide in my steps to personal recovery.
On
Cyber Physcology, we have an interesting article that researches the use of
alcohol in social media, advertising and marketing online, and spotting
drinking problems on college students face book pages.
Morgan, Snelson, and Bowers (2010) surveyed
Facebook users, inquiring whether or not they posted alcohol-related images or
videos on the site. Of 314 college students surveyed, 92% reported having a
Facebook or MySpace profile; 32% of them reported having posted pictures of
themselves with alcohol-related content. More specifically, 17% of Facebook
users had posted such images of themselves.
For
me, social media has given me moments of instant craving. Social media provides
marketing to be performed by others, at no cost. The average day-to-day
connasuire can post a pictures of themselves or friends drinking, and
ultimately, advertising a product for a number of consumers to see. However, in
some colleges or communities around the country, it promotes drinking to a
whole new level.
Binge
drinking is defined as consuming more than five beverages a day, three days a
week. Do we find that social media is actually creating a society of young
drunkards? One article suggests just that for PENN State students, as the
numbers of alcoholic-related incidents during their schools orientation rose
seventy-six percent from the year prior (2011), and that most new students had
only began binging at college. Any new blood on campus can view fraternity, sorority,
and older students face book pages, and most times, they see a “happy” and “sociable”
group of peers downing beverages.
Now
on the other hand, social media is a blessing for addicts alike. The monotonous
motions of logging on, reading some randomness about everyone you know (or
think you know), and spending just those few minutes away from your demons is a
necessary mind number. For most recovering alcoholics, anonymity is easily
obtainable.
Alcoholics
Anonymous has been the number one organization in keeping drunks somewhat
sober. Of course it has worked successfully for thousands (to include my
father), and now embraces social networking as a great tool. Anonymity is the
main tenet of AA, and any site that can grant this are surely sought out for
and used. Forums, twitter, blog sites – anything that can be a positive outlet
for a common demographic of winos to utilize. I know for me, it is working.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alcoholism.html
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