Why I Like Alcohol

I think my meandering psyche has finally stumbled upon something significant--at least to me. I'm a bit drunk at this point; not smashed and not sober--somewhere in the "happy zone", and I don't think it makes a bit of difference as to the validity of the point that will be made somewhere below (should I have reason to contradict this statement when viewing it as a sober fellow, I will duly correct any errors yet leave them bare for the scrutiny of anybody who gives a damn).

I've wondered for some time now why I like to drink (and also why so many people think drinking is necessarily bad, but that's another post). Last week, I was on my way to get some more beer and cigarettes when I spotted a congregation of Alcoholics Anonymous folks hanging out in front of their meeting place. Since I was once ordered to attend six-months worth of AA meetings in my youth, I have a respect for the group and its patrons. So I stopped and chatted with a guy there for a while. I tried to find out why he stopped drinking, and why he might think I ought to stop too. He told stories of cocaine abuse and losing jobs because of insobriety, etc; yet none of these things spoke to me. I walked away from that encounter with only food-for-thought (that drinking suppresses fear that should only be conquered by the sound-of-mind and not the drunk, but that should be yet another post).

But it's been on my mind now, so I've been thinking of it lately.

Then it hit me, out of nowhere (yes, I know that is the cliche's cliche, but it cannot be more succinctly stated). I realized that I yearn for the irrational. I have, in recent times, come to largely embrace an empiricist philosophy. If I can't understand a thing, then I have little reason to put any stock in it. Yet I have a gut feeling that there is a world out there that exists beyond reason and fact. When I drink, I can enter this world. I can abandon empiricism and the necessity of fact. I can leave behind all the responsibilities of being real in a real world. Most importantly, I can experience being irrational in a very real way. It doesn't cut-loose bonds to reality, it enlivens bonds that have withered from disuse.

Is this an alcoholic's excuse to continue drinking, or another footfall in the homecoming of a wayward soul?

...or both?