How should we drink?
.jpg?w=728)
By Shin Chul-ho
I know a man who lives to drink and smoke. People who drink with him generally do so in three rounds. The first round involves drinking soju with grilled pork belly. After he gets a bit tipsy, he moves into the second round of playing billiards. Then it is on to round three and the drinking of beer. Throughout the night, he also smokes.
When I get home, it is around midnight. So, in order to save time and protect my health, I usually manage to avoid drinking with him. In fact, these days I almost never join him.
His lifestyle is a backbreaker for a non-drinker and non-smoker like me. He is not conscious at all of how his behavior affects others. To put it in a nutshell, he affects others in two ways ― the loss of five hours every time and the loss of health due to the drinking and inhaling of smoke.
Despite the indisputable facts, he argues in favor of drinking and smoking. He says that people can build friendly relationships through drinking. It sounds plausible. However, it would be more likely with only moderate drinking and a moderate amount of time. His consumptive drinking pattern only makes people fatigued. Once he said, “If Goethe hadn’t drunk alcohol, Goethe could not have written Faust.”
Where did he hear this absurdity? I don’t know whether Goethe drank a lot. But why can’t he understand that if Goethe had not drunk, he may have written a better work than Faust? His sheer absurdity goes on to anti-medical silliness ― drinkers live longer than non-drinkers; doctors were surprised to find that smokers live longer than non-smokers.
He should be appointed as some kind of honorary ambassador for drinking and smoking.
During one discussion, I said that smoking is closely connected with lung cancer and he responded with an elusive remark: “How, then, can a non-smoker living deep in the mountains still get lung cancer?”Oh, my god! He made such ridiculous generalizations.
Recently, I told him the people at our school should be careful as there were some complaints from the nearby residents about the area reeking of cigarettes. He abruptly got angry with me.
He also got a new job a couple of months ago. At a drinking party, he said, “You’ll have to drink if you want to work with me.” How offensive. He gave a hint that everyone’s drinking habits should be suited to his. Can he run an organization in a democratic way with such a despotic way of thinking? At the beginning of President Park Geun-hye’s administration, he said that he would operate the organization as a matter of principle like the President. I think that the two principles are completely different, like oil and water.
I thought about why he’s so obsessed by alcohol, which has left his mind and body severely damaged? For him, drinking seems like a religion. For a religious person, religion is the center of their world. Alcohol is the indispensable thing without which life would be meaningless to him. As people find God when they need comfort and meaning in their lives, so he seems to find alcohol.
When he started his position at his current school, he commuted to work from his house. However, he seemed to be afraid of getting caught drunk driving so he rented a house in front of the school, cooking for himself alone. It’s not too much to say that his everyday life is ruled by alcohol.
Judging from his obesity, drinking, smoking and age, he seems to be a ticking time-bomb. What he needs to do immediately is get a thorough medical checkup of not only his body but his mind, so he can then rest and undergo the appropriate treatment.
Drinking can sometimes bring people together. But it is not the only way people get acquainted with each another. We must acknowledge the right not to drink at parties, and be aware that drinking can hurt one’s health. That would be a starting point for the promotion of wholesome drinking.
The writer is an elementary schoolteacher outside of Seoul. His email address is heemy123@hanmail.net.