is THIS as good as it gets...

in the movie "As Good As It Gets", Jack Nicholson insults Helen Hunt, ON THEIR FIRST DATE, by asking why he had to go and buy a blazer to eat in the expensive restaurant he had taken her to, while she could sit there in a 'house-dress', which happened to be the most beautiful dress she owned. she, deeply hurt, stormed off leaving him alone at the bar. sitting there, confounded as to what she was so upset about, he turned to the barman for some sage words of advice and insulted HIM by saying: "hey you! yes you," the barman begrudgingly came over, "what do you make of this? UGH, look at me, i must be really desperate asking advice from YOU, a man peddling the world's last legal drug..."

Jack obviously didn't have any luck with him EITHER. but what he was saying was the truth.

alcohol IS a drug. and it's legal. and THAT'S the problem.

i've weaved my way around alot of substances - legal and illegal - for the most part of my adult life. so i think i've earned my colors-blazer and prefects badge in that department. hang on what am i saying, i was HEAD GIRL i'm SANDY GREEN for heavens' sake!

but i'm not an addict.

i am an extremist. an extremist is a person who leaps from one MAJOR fixation, takes it to the ULTIMATE, MAXIMUM of MAX'S, only to get BORED and move swiftly along to something else.

of course this type of behavior isn't exactly exemplary girl-guide stuff in ITSELF but i honestly can say that i do not know what it feels like to have ONE UGLY THING sitting on your shoulders and talking shit into your ears for like, YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.

but, while doing the practical for my degree in the Chemistry (BSc.Jol) - in which i can proudly say i have received my honorary doctorate, one chemical has always seemed to leap off the Periodic Table Of Elements chart at my eyes waaaay more powerfully than ALL the rest.

that chemical is alcohol.

more deaths, more suicides, more broken relationships, more trauma, more health issues - physical and mental - more struggling and thrashing and programs and rehabs and hospitals, and sadness and depression and heartbreak and loneliness have been caused by THIS DRUG than anything else that i have ever witnessed in all my living memory.

why is this so? i'll tell you EXACTLY why this so.

alcohol, unlike ANY OTHER DRUG is not only socially acceptable, it is socially ENFORCED. EVERYBODY drinks. EVERYBODY wants YOU to drink WITH THEM. and if you DON'T then you're an ASSHOLE-BORING-LOSER-NERD. and YOU are made to FEEL like one.

appalling isn't it? look, it's easy easy for me to talk because i got bored with alcohol YEARS ago, but i'm GLAD it's easy for me to talk because hey, i KNOW WHAT THE HELL I'M TALKING ABOUT! picture this: we're all out at Xmas lunch and everybody raises their glass of their favorite alcoholic beverage to toast and i, Sandy Green, whip out a gram of COKE, cling cling their glasses with my rolled up R100 note and proceed to chop a line and blast it off the table. c'mon. close your eyes and imagine that. what would everybody do? i'm not actually sure MYSELF but one thing's for certain, MY name will be scratched off THEIR party list. in PERMANENT MARKER.

now, take the IDENTICAL SITUATION: everybody's toasting their glasses at the SAME party and i raise my glass of DIET COKE. i'm telling you guys as sure as Father Xmas is a white man i'll be deleted from that SAME LIST with the SAME big black marker.

don't ask me why this is, because i don't know, but what i DO know is that THIS is the reason why alcohol sits at the TOP OF THE LIST as the World's Most Dangerous Drug.

i can safely say i'll never drink again, not because of the scariness of it, it's just that right now i prefer a six-pack of abs as opposed to a six-pack of beer.

and i don't have any answers on how to break Dark Lord Alcohol's thick, seemingly indestructible muscular spine and bury him either. i've seen too many strong-minded, brilliant people WAAAAY out of MY league try and try and lose in the end.

but what i DO know unequivocably, undeniably and without QUESTION is that this drug is HERE, it is DAMAGING and it's NEVER going to leave.

and people that are its slave will, likewise, ALWAYS be here, will DEFINITELY get damaged, and will most likely NEVER change.

and that is why i don't give two shits when people denigrate me for staying sober. all it takes is one look at their helpless, unglamorous, bent-out-of-shape faces and i find it EASY to turn my back and extend my right middle finger for their pitiful contemplation.

go ahead, have another drink guys, i'm off to the gym.