The great god

Coming from a 'dry' (alcohol-free) community, I am often struck at how much we worship at the alter of the Drink. It's a curious thing really.

Just a few weeks ago, Fred and I attended a workshop on 'Working with Complex Clients', people who present with drug abuse and mental health problems. Out in the Lands, the main issues we face are marijuana and mental health issues, so we thought it would be useful. Unfortunately, we hadn't thought it through well enough before signing up.

Without a doubt, at least half of the course time was spent on the impact of alcohol abuse and misuse (either in course content or discussion among participants). An interesting factual snippet I gleaned was that by far the best drug to take in terms of its health impact, having no long term effect on the body and only inconveniencing its user by constipation, is heroin. Pure heroin, that is. By contrast, alcohol wreaks enormous damage on the body, destroying the liver, affecting cognition, impairing judgement (leading to injury) etc etc.

Ergo, when taken in context of factual information about drugs, one of the most damaging things about alcohol is its social acceptability. It's integrated into our lives as a drug of choice, entirely guilt-free (for those of us not addicted to the stuff that is). For example, while few people in my family drink much, we nevertheless have stocked the cool room with various potent brews over the festive season. Never mind that they are not cracked open. For a party of 10 adults, we drank less than half a bottle of white wine and just slightly more of red wine on Christmas Eve. A few more beers were cracked open earlier in the day, but it was stinking hot and the cool room was well stocked and in easy reach. Were it not for the social acceptability of drinking, and the ritualised quality of it at times like this, I doubt we'd even go to the trouble of buying more than the odd bottle or two. The drink is mostly for the occasion.

We are the exception though. On the way through to my brother's place for Christmas, Fred and I stopped over in the Hunter Valley. It was my first time off the highway, and (perhaps having just come from Blackstone the day before) I was gobsmacked at the extraordinary wealth that wine represents. Small roads off the highway were flanked by enormous, stunningly designed 'cellar doors' (a misnomer for the modern incarnation of tasting rooms). Architecturally soaring rooflines sang their high profit notes to the open skies of the valley. Quaint accommodation, overlooking rows of hand chipped vines, bespoke quality.

The sheer density of industry to support the great god of alcohol was omnipresent. A conversation with a friend still on the Lands led to a brief exchange of similar moments in different times, different places. Marijuana cafes in Amsterdam. Absinthe bars in nineteenth century France. Opium dens in England. If it's acceptable societally, we accept it wholeheartedly. Blindly even. Anyone for heroin? We're all injecting up on the verandah.

And I was reminded again, as I often am, of why it's so interesting to live where I do. In an oddly congruent way, there is something deeply Australian and foreign about living remote, in Aboriginal lands. Living there is like turning a mirror onto oneself, just as happens when we go overseas. Why exactly are things the way they are, accepted without question? What exactly makes us think what we think, value what we do, and expect without question? The answer is simple and complex. Culture. It is so deeply embedded that without something like travel to a foreign land, we soon lose sight of it altogether.