Addiction doesn’t discriminate

Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund

At 12, I signed a pledge in D.A.R.E. that I would never smoke or drink. Within a year, I broke that promise. I drank my first sip of whiskey at 13, and smoked my first cigarette the same year.

No one “peer pressured” me, and I wasn’t going to any crazy parties yet to be tempted. I found the liquor in the laundry room. We rarely kept alcohol in our home, except for an occasional reward for my parents’ summer yard work and for my mom’s interest in exotic recipes. This bottle was assigned for her Irish whiskey cake. Cowboys and detectives drank whiskey, so of course it sounded promising and I thought I might try some while my entire family slept in one Saturday morning.

I felt sick the rest of the day after a shot or two and didn’t try anything again until I was 16 and stole a Budweiser from the refrigerator in my friend’s parent’s house. My next drink was when I was of legal age.

Despite my early dabbling, I never got hooked. I like both alcohol and cigarettes, but I swore off even casually lighting up nine years ago and imbibe an average of two drinks a month. I’m not a moralizer when it comes to these substances. Last fall I wrote about how I don’t like being passed over with beer offers just because I’m a woman and people don’t expect that I like a good milk stout.

What I couldn’t write in the same column is that my relationship with alcohol is complicated.

I knew about raging parties and running from police way too early, because that’s what my friends were all about in high school. In college, I rolled my eyes at skinny girls who swore vodka was the best thing to get you drunk the fastest with the lowest caloric penalty. The dangers of being found unconscious among strangers haunted me, and wouldn’t dare risk participating. As a young teen, I usually left parties before they bothered me too much. Throughout college, I was already over watching everyone else get lit while I stayed sober, so I stayed in or followed my older brother’s band to nearby bars and played photographer a lot.

Yet D.A.R.E., or any other drug prevention program in school, never could have prepared me for the way alcohol consumption changes as you age or pass from one social circle to the next.

At my graduate school, English majors were sophisticated and wouldn’t deign to pound Keystones to get hammered. They splurged on craft beers, top shelf liquor, and get into making their own moonshine. Drinking the good stuff while reading Yeats conveyed dignity and class, because didn’t all the greats do it like that? We all carried the potential to be maudlin would-be geniuses — or really stressed out students without a clue, trying to polish our embarrassingly juvenile college party days or wishing to cut loose from keeping it clean for so long.

My husband’s school wasn’t so concerned about looking sophomoric. Brews at a pool party were all it took to get down in his department. I preferred the unabashed debauch after a time. At least there was no hiding the purpose of the event.

Now, there are reading groups to attend, hosted at bars or at least stocked with a few bottles of mid-level white wine. Parties for our children or to celebrate some holiday have coolers filled to the top, and no one would think about it because we’re all of age, and we’re mature enough to buy better beer.

Although it’s unspoken, I find that many believe that responsible, healthy people don’t fall into the danger zone while sipping on something from a microbrewery. And surely unwinding with a few after work or spending the whole day watching kids isn’t the same as getting obliterated at a party with a beer bong or playing Edward Fortyhands until you can’t stand up.

Considering my choices thus far regarding alcohol and other substances, I know I’m not righteous. At best, I’ve been vain, scared, or maybe even sanctimonious when it comes to abstaining or keeping my drink count low. But I also know I’m limited in my self-control and that addiction doesn’t discriminate based on education, income, race, or religion.

As I get older, I find it harder to know when and how to say I’m worried about my peers. Problem drinking doesn’t always lead to lost jobs, arrests, battered partners or children, or even withdrawal from community involvement. At least, that’s not what happens initially. What might have started as stupid Greek life fun or a night out with the girls, however, can linger and transform into something more threatening when you’re not expecting it.

That, I’m not sure I could have ever learned in a class, and it’s unfortunate that I’ve had to figure it out by watching it happen.

Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund is a former news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum, now living and writing in New York City.