Tolerance and Alcoholism
One Drunks Opinion
By Bill M
Most people would define addiction as “dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming.” That is certainly an accurate description, but it’s not complete. Princeton University, for example, includes the words “being abnormally tolerant to [and]” in front of that. The mention of “tolerance” before “dependence” is no accident, and it is very important in understanding the concept of addition.
Let me give you an example. I had my first drink of alcohol at the age of 14. I “split” a full bottle of 100-proof bourbon whiskey with two classmates. It was our bottle; after all, we’d worked hard to sneak it out of the liquor cabinet of another friend’s house.
Actually, split is kind of a relative term. One buddy drank four shots, retired to the bathroom, and (his words) spent the rest of the night hoping he didn’t puke up his toenails. The other buddy drank around ten shots, and was about as goofy as I’d ever seen him until he fell passed out in the back yard.
He was still there when the sprinklers came on at eight o’clock the next morning, and his father was not amused when he was startled enough to spill coffee when he jumped up from behind a bush.
Me? I killed the rest of the bottle. I was proud of that fact for a long, long time. Even after I learned, years later, that I could – probably should - have been dead from consuming that much alcohol, I was proud of it. I’d like to say that I never suspected that the effect alcohol had on me that very first time didn’t scare me as much as it made me “proud.”
Almost all “normal” people who start to use alcohol develop a tolerance to it. Many alcoholics do too, but they often start out with the ability to handle much more alcohol than others do. That’s a true double-edged sword, however, because frequently the tolerance fools you into believing you are more in control than you are.
For years and years, I was the guy who drove everybody home, because I didn’t seem drunk. The truth of the matter is, however, I was probably seldom sober. I was probably legally drunk until far into the next day, even though I went to work and was as productive enough to get promotions and win awards.
Another example from my own past is downright scary. A Navy friend and I, already drunk, were egged on by a crowd of others to compete by chugging half-pints of Schnapps. We obliged – twice, as a matter of fact, and were starting on a third contest when he passed out. He did so in a way that worried some of the folks we were partying with, and they went to check him out.
Apparently, I got scared at that point and left. (I used to black out when I drank, so I have to fill in some “blank” time with what reliable witnesses told me.) In the confusion surrounding my friend passing out, I managed to get to my car and drove away. I didn’t get far – I was stopped within one hundred feet of the parking lot by a policeman who saw that I had difficulty getting into my car.
They took my buddy to the base hospital, where he was admitted for alcohol poisoning. He was not discharged for four days. I ended up there, too, only I was taken there for observation after a series of breathalyzer tests indicated my blood alcohol content was .32 (four times the legal limit for driving) and kept going up.
The police, not wanting a case of alcohol poisoning on their hands, took me there for observation. I never did pass out, and appeared (according to the records) to the hospital personnel as if my blood alcohol content was barely over the legal limit.
That’s the danger of tolerance. Alcohol is a chemical, and the effects on the body are predictable. I was no more or no less drunk than my buddy. His body responded naturally – he passed out.
Mine did not. By that point in my drinking, I could have literally drunk myself to death in a single session of drinking and had none of the natural defenses that the “normal” drinker would have had.