Kathy, Mike and Alcohol

were you sober enough to know what was going on oh yeah well some of it I'm remember bits and pieces here and there well what happened next well when we got to the hospital they took out of the ambulance and moved it seems as if I've heard this story a hundred times the names and faces Chang but everything else stays the same they had too much to drink there was an accident somebody's taken to the hospital and then the police investigation Mike and Kathy were drinking they had a serious accident and they were referred to our program do you know why you're here sure but I haven't got any drinking problem I I just got drunk that once that's the attitude most kids have when they come in I haven't got a drinking problem we try to see that they don't leave feeling the same way we try to help them find out for themselves what part alcohol alol played in their troubles and in their lives generally some of them even discovered they're full-fledged alcoholics I should know like many of the counselors in this program I'm a recovered alcoholic myself when did you start drinking that night pretty early it was the first date I had after we moved here and I was sort of glad when Mike asked me he seemed nice and he hung around without the really popular kute I snuck a bottle of vodka from home and we started on it right away I could always get all I wanted no [Music] problem by the time we got to the Disco we were both pretty high I'd really loosened up and I began to feel as if I'd known the kids all my life [Music] we had a lot of fun with the bottle pretending it was like being in a Speak Easy dur [Music] prohibition I was getting plastered more than I've ever been [Music] before we started to dance but but you were pretty far gone so are you yeah I guess I was but it was you who fell all over the table oh it wasn't all that [Music] bad I'd had it with that place anyway and when they began the houseless about drinking we [Music] left we've been having such a great time and we were really starting to feel good it made me mad the way they spoiled everything I wanted some more booze but we'd already finished the Vodka so Kathy said that we could go to her house and get some more my father was away as usual and my mother was asleep upstairs we really had to sneak around like a couple of burglars ouch but I brought my [ __ ] be quiet you wake her up they'll never know the difference I was still burned up about that guy in the Disco but anyway we had the bottle so we took off to do some serious drinking well yeah sort of do you usually drink that much no but I just like to have a few beers once in a while have a few laughs just feel good you know what I mean well it makes you feel like you really are somebody for a while anyway how about you Kathy how long have you been drinking oh I guess I've been drinking ever since I was 13 or so I don't remember exactly but that was only the second or third time I've really gotten drunk I just drink to keep me from feeling bad vodka usually it's pretty strong and no one can smell it on my breath I always keep a little B in my purse that's what gets me through the day why do you drink that way to keep from feeling Lonesome I guess because I am alone most of the time Kathy and her family moved here just before the fall semester began it was the fifth City she'd lived in since she started school all the moving around made it impossible for her to keep any close friends besides that she was an only child and she was left pretty much to herself people thought she was very mature for her age but actually she was very with drawn and eagerly searching for the companionship and attention that her family didn't give her Kathy's father was often away from home for several days at a [Music] time Kathy's mother always became involved in a lot of volunteer organizations as soon as she moved into a new place it gave her a sense of belonging and helped her fill in the days when her husband was away even though Cathy's mother seemed to be very outgoing below the surface she was just as shy and withdrawn as Kathy was but she had discovered years ago that a drink or two helped give her a feeling of confidence when Kathy's father was on the road he drank fairly heavily because of the pressures of business when he was home he drank fairly heavily to forget business and to forget anything else that happened to worry him his wife always kept him company Kathy learned all these lessons early and well and pretty soon she also learned that neither her mother nor her father ever noticed that their liquor was disappearing even faster than [Music] usual Mike lived in an apartment with his divorced mother and two younger sisters his mother worked full-time and dated frequently Mike felt that his mother was closer to the two girls than to him and didn't give him his share of her attention worse than that though he was convinced that he was being dominated by three females and that he lived in a female [Music] environment when Mike's mother did call him the man of the house it only meant that he was needed for babysitting either after school while she was working or when she went out on dates Mike knew that life wasn't easy for her but he wished that sometimes she could see that it wasn't easy for him [Music] either there were times when he felt he just had to blow up a little steam Downing a few beers with the guys and horsing around was his way of getting away from the female atmosphere at home well after a couple beers I felt really great like I own the world I knew exactly what he meant back when I was drinking I had a lot of the same weird ideas about what alcohol did and didn't do for you just the way most people do I guess for instance I always thought that a few drinks really turn you on but I found out later that alcohol isn't a stimulant at all it's a depressive like a sedative something that helps put you to sleep at first it often makes you think you're stimulated because it blocks out the inhibitions you normally have it does that by deadening your central nervous system so there's no real communication between your brain and the rest of your body and this starts with the first drink or the first beer you take even though you might think it isn't affecting you at all when you keep drinking more and more because you want to feel better and better your nervous system gets more and more depressed and pretty soon you're just out of it [Music] then there's a problem of sobering up like a lot of people I used to think that cold showers or black coffee or walking around would speed up the process well I found out there's just no way to sober up in a hurry before I can get out of your system alcohol first has to go through your liver and your liver can handle only about half an ounce of alcohol per hour so the only way to sober up is just a waited out the same goes for The Hangover everybody's got a favorite cure I used to have a couple myself but none of them ever works and having another drink is a especially big mistake that only prolongs the pain you just have to suffer through it all and maybe realize that your body is trying to tell you something did you ever think you might have a drinking problem Mike not me I only drank the hard stuff that once when we had the accident I like beer well do you know how much alcohol there is in a can of beer not very much well it has the same amount as there is in a shot of booze so figure it out if you put away a sixpack in 1 hour it's the same as having six belts in 1 hour no kidding well anyway I can hold [Music] it all the time sure well most of the time anyhow and you never thought you might have a drinking problem tell me Kathy what do you think an alcoholic is well it's someone who's sick like you said you used to be that's right alcoholism is a disease just like heart disease or cancer but how would you describe an alcoholic I guess a real bad ones like those bums you see on Skid Row not necessarily some Studies have shown that only about half the people on Skid Row have drinking problems and only about 3 to 5% of all the alcoholics in the country are on skid Ro about 70% of all alcoholics are married and have jobs and live pretty much like your neighbors [Music] an alcoholic middle-aged guy who really goes to the booze like my father I don't know about your father but another research study showed that young men in their early 20s had the highest incidence of drinking problems besides it's not necessarily how much you drink that shows whether you're an alcoholic or not it's when you drink and how you drink and most important of all why you drink and another thing you spoke about guys well maybe you didn't know that more than 30% of all the alcoholics in the country are women I guess I don't know that much about it how do you describe an alcoholic how about two teenagers who have to get drunk in order to get over being kicked out of a disco at the very least they've got a drinking problem how about a high school sophomore who has to drink beer to prove to himself that he's a man and then the first time he switches to the hard stuff he wrecks his car and almost kills his [Music] date look out or a 16-year-old girl who sneaks a sip from a bottle in her purse because she can't face the world sober I never thought of it that way [Music]