Why I Used To Drink – Are You Drunk? #3 – updated 2017

by | Apr 2, 2010 | Are You Drunk? - 2010, George Jean Nathan | 0 comments

Have you ever been abstaining (or don’t ever drink) and found yourself at a bar or a gathering where everyone is drinking a LOT, getting drunk, loud, funny and interesting (or so they think)? If you are not drinking these people are the first two, drunk and loud, and for about 10 minutes, the third and fourth, funny and interesting. But after that they are just the first two. That grows old of course so you have three choices, drink the magic elixir that will make these people funny and interesting again, torture yourself by staying amidst them or go home (or the Waffle House).
I quit drinking a year before I left my job at a restaurant and bar I had been working at for over a decade. Until I stopped I would hang out after work and be one of the drunk, loud, funny and interesting ones. After I stopped I found that while I loved these people just as much as before, I no longer was seeing the ‘funny and interesting’ as I had before. My wife and kids became more interesting (which they should have been all along obviously, but hey, I was an idiot, ok?) and I liked going home at the end of work.

One point to remember in case you are in an alcohol dilemma, what you do now doesn’t just have consequences with a hangover. This is especially true of men, who may have to deal with women who might just happen to have memories longer than a comet’s tail. Be mindful that it, perhaps, is all being recorded in their brain for remembering a LONG time later. I am just sayin….
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman

“I drink to make other people interesting.” – George Jean Nathan, 1882-1958, American drama critic and editor

No Man Can Think Clearly When His Fists Are Clenched

by | Jan 21, 2009 | George Jean Nathan | 0 comments

“No Man Can Think Clearly When His Fists Are Clenched.” – George Jean Nathan

Anger is most often an enemy of thought. It can be used deliberately to engender thought in others, like from a pulpit or a lecturn. But it is more often not ‘used’ in any deliberate way, or rather, in any well thought out way.

If you are angry today, unclench your fist, your emotions, your mind, just for a minute. You won’t have to give up your right to be angry a moment later,you can go back to it if you want. You aren’t relinquishing your right to be have anger as an avenue and as a weapon. You can use it if you want, right now or later. But if you practice letting go of it, you might find you don’t need it, much like an addict realizes at some defining moment they can get along with out the cigarette or drink. Maybe you can too. Try it, you have nothing to lose but your anger.

Drawing © 2022 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com