Drinking On St. Patrick’s Day, Green Around the Gills

In the world of mental illness and mental health there is a strange border territory where victims and criminals mingle, cause and effect chase one another round and round the barn, and responsibility is almost impossible to assign. I am speaking, naturally, of drug and alcohol abuse.

In the eyes of some, drug and alcohol abusers are simply victims of their own hard-wiring, guiltless as the man who, strolling down a city sidewalk one fine spring morning, is crushed to death when the rope being used by non-union piano movers to transport a Baldwin upright into a 4th floor cold water walk-up apartment casts aside its amateurishly tied knots and surrenders to gravity.

In the eyes of others, dipsomaniacs and drug abusers are merely self-destructive whackadoomians intent on beating the reaper to his work. There is little sympathy to be found among the members of this chilly community.

But no matter where you stand, sit, or fall on this thorny subject, the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day presents challenges to rival any other holiday on the calendar because it is, quite unapologetically, a love song to intoxication, a libation celebration.

While we may observe that Emerald Islanders have added much to world culture, rigorous honesty compels us to point out that it was done in spite of, not because of, alcohol. So where does this leave us? How shall we respond to the boisterous parades and headlong descent into intoxicant-induced stupor?

I believe we should respond with sympathy. Please do not misunderstand; I cannot condone this behavior. As a dipsomaniac in recovery myself it is essential that I do nothing to glamorize the scourge that is alcohol. But, though I may have suffered mightily at the hands, and claws, of hideous monsters driving me to drink, I never had to face one terrifying entity the Irish live with every day.

Leprechauns. Even writing the word gives me chills. How creepy can you possibly get?

So this St. Patrick’s Day, try to be a little understanding as the green beer flows and behavior grows increasingly pugnacious and irrational. We all have demons, yes. But ask yourself this; if you saw leprechauns every morning, would you be strong enough to face them on your own?