I’m actually really riled up now on the topic above. I’m not really vetting this post, seriously I just need to get my thoughts out so please pardon me, my language, and any disorganization in thoughts.

Let me go to the heart of what it is first. I’m an advocate that people needs to learn how to cope with our emotions and thoughts, and we need to rationalize to a certain degree in order to understand ourselves. The journey to understand ourselves, as well as other human being is endless, thus we should always keep mindful of our actions. I’m not freaking perfect, but I try. By trying means,  to want to get out of undesirable situations if it’s not good for our physical and mental well-being. I am to date, still learning which is why difficult as hell it was, I quit smoking. That’s not the only thing I tried, but I guess that isn’t the focus for this post.

So today I was concern over a friend’s emotional state, thus have passed on information to his friends to be there to speak to him. I raise concerns over his disorientation with reality and he is slightly delusional. It’s not an insult I’m trying to make but an actual problem that I’ve observed. Knowing this friend for so long, I was seriously quite taken aback to know how he took imagination as facts as lived by it. (Not including the fact that I thought back about things he said about his life for the past 10 years and wonder if any of them were illusions too).

I understand that my friends aren’t showy emotionally all the time. And when problems arises they tend to oppress it. I mean everyone has a limit to hide their emotions, one day it comes back, in a different form. It never really goes away. Thus, we need to deal with it head on, and not let it manifest into something bigger or more evil. Even the cheeriest and most successful people might face this, but unhappiness is seriously something that everyone faces.

So I brought about the point that my friend starting drinking again, every day, every 2 days they are drinking.

I have nothing against drinking. But my case here is this – using alcohol by a mean of permanent disablement to emotions or rather to permanently cope with emotions is not okay.

I knew my friends way before, just that we talked more in the past 10 years. We wouldn’t say we’re all super close. They drink almost every day or every 2 days whenever they are single. They drink a lot more when they get out of relationship. Sometimes masked as a reason to celebrate, but actually mostly to numb that emotion. I’m really worried because it means, they never actually learn to acknowledge, understand or cope with what they feel.

I spoke to 3 people now, and they all tell me that “this is a guy’s thing”, “it’s okay what”, “just drink lor”, “sad then come out drink”. No guys, it’s not okay. Empowering them to numb their emotions via alcohol is not okay. Somebody needs to tell them that, it’s okay to feel this way, you can have some alcohol but it should not be your only method to deal with emotions that are foreign to you, or any type of pain. Yes one week, sometimes 1 month, or a period of few months on some days, I get it.

But drinking for months every day or every year, and then showing you never actually grew out of a broken relationship, or the emotions and putting on a facade or rationalism is not going to help you in the long run. We live to feel and we learn how to get out. That’s the damn drive we should have. Besides the fact that it harms you physically and financially (you gotta be doing financially okay , even if you’re drinking cheap alcohol everyday), it also harms our mental health and impairs our judgement.

I dislike that mental health is neglected by many, and that we do not seek active methods to take care of it. It’s even more apparent in males. I mean seriously, so what if you earn a bloody paycheck but your heart is dead inside. Have you really lived, dude?

Ever wondered why the more emotionally oppressed societies have higher suicide levels? Societies that put more pressure on public actions and emotional outbursts, or societies in which drinking is a culture has higher suicide rates?

Uhhuh.

It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to be not okay sometimes.

Ultimately, my friends can do whatever they wanna do. We need to express more, and I’m working on that myself too. I’m not going to preach or impose on them, and neither is anyone going to be able to do that to me. But I will share my concerns.

Honestly I worry. I worry about myself. I worry about losing my ability to feel. I worry about getting hurt too much I choose this same path too. I worry about the society being a bunch of lunatics one day because they forgot how to deal with emotions. Once we forget how to deal with it, we make poor choices, we become a clam. We shut off, we manifest disorders. Some people consider suicide. And, suicide figures are apparently more significant in alcoholics. It’s pretty correlated, check this out “Alcohol is involved over a quarter of all suicides in the US (approximately 7500 per year). Suicide is 120 times more prevalent among adult alcoholics than in the general population. Alcohol abusers have higher rates of both attempted and completed suicide than non-abusers.”

But stop telling me I’m worrying too much. This is a stand that grounded me. Alcoholism – which I would refine my stand as an OVER-RELIANCE to alcohol – is not freaking okay. And if you hate this aspect about yourself, trust me, you are more than capable to change. I’m putting my thoughts out here, hopefully the people who have this stand too wouldn’t feel as alone as I am with some of my alcoholic friends.