Current:Home > MarketsMy drinking problem taught me a hard truth about my home state -EquityExchange
My drinking problem taught me a hard truth about my home state
View
Date:2025-04-17 05:01:08
The lonely streetlight shone like a full moon just for me as I tipped the liquor bottle into the night sky. It was my first time drunk – mouth numb, head singing – and trouble was on the way.
First when my parents heard their teenage son was drinking in the middle of town. But much more to come.
It would take years to admit I had a drinking problem. Not seeing it kept me from a healthy relationship with alcohol, and myself. Finally facing it led me to a deeper truth about one of Wisconsin’s defining cultural characteristics: We must address mental health if we want to stop ricocheting between avoiding and condemning what alcohol means to our home state.
Looking back I can see how my life was primed for alcohol abuse. Growing up on a farm in Wisconsin – proudly one of America’s top alcohol states – in a family descended from German immigrants known for hard work and harder drinking. Later working in journalism then politics, two famous drinking professions.
But, as legendary country music drunk George Jones sang, I had choices.
Alcohol a challenge, cultural touchstone in hard-drinking Wisconsin
As a boy I sat on my grandpa’s work shoes watching game shows as he snuck me sips of beer. Over the years various family and friends emerged as alcoholics – sometimes facing job loss or jail, sometimes concealing the turmoil. Others were good role models, people like my dad who shielded us from excessive drinking. Some adults in my life were both.
For me alcohol would be both a challenge and a meaningful cultural touchstone.
Drinking less is having a moment.The sober curious movement is making me wonder why I drink at all.
From early on, I struggled to live up to my dad, a third-generation farmer with talents for cattle and tractors I lacked. As I got older I learned he stood for a disappearing way of life I worried I didn’t fit, despite his love and support.
College offered new sources of self-worth, and a writing career that would wind through the worlds of journalism then public policy in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. Drinking followed: College keggers, Nashville’s rowdy music scene, D.C. happy hours.
There was good and bad. Harmless party nights drew my sister and I closer after I left home. Darkened barrooms built some of my best friendships. But then there was the first time I chugged a beer before work on the worn linoleum floor of my apartment kitchen. It wasn’t long before I was many years past college, still doing all-night happy hours several nights a week, followed by weekend benders. Drinking when nobody else was became common.
I rationalized I was just taking the edge off my stressful, driven career. But I was also numbing a feeling I had let my family down, as the first eldest son in four generations not to farm. Drinking let me look away.
The night I called my future wife drunk and broke down crying
I want to be careful to not equate my experience with others, and I’m not claiming to face the same challenges as someone with diagnosed alcohol use disorder. I’m lucky: In the dozen years of my hardest drinking, from age 19 to 31, I didn’t destroy what I was working toward in life, nobody got hurt, and I never had a relationship destroyed.
But I taxed them. And it took years of growing professional responsibility, finally becoming clear in D.C., to start moderating. Returning to Wisconsin offered ways to reconnect with our way of life – from helping my dad, to deepening family ties, to spending time on our land, to writing – but I still fought an urge I didn’t understand.
Deer hunting is dying.That should worry you even if you don't hunt.
It was dark and lonely the night I called my future wife, and broke down crying. I was unexpectedly drunk, needing a ride, and finally wanting to talk to a therapist. Through years of working on my mental health I realized I felt I was failing people, tying all the way back to childhood.
There are people with problems they can curb, like I was lucky to do. Others face steeper biological alcohol dependence, and decide to quit altogether. But these days I believe whoever it is, we must take a sober look to help them identify their deeper issue, if we want a healthy pastime.
Some issues heal over time. Recently my first daughter was born, and I went to a favorite supper club to get carryout our first week home. I had a cocktail waiting at the bar, and despite the stress and fear of failure accompanying my joy, I felt no need for another.
I finished up, and went home.
Brian Reisinger grew up on a family farm in Sauk County, Wisconsin. He contributes columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this column first published. Reisinger works in public affairs consulting for Platform Communications. He is the author of the forthcoming book "Land Rich, Cash Poor."
veryGood! (45616)
Related
- Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow owns a $3 million Batmobile Tumbler
- Chris Wallace will leave CNN 3 years after defecting from 'Fox News Sunday'
- Michigan soldier’s daughter finally took a long look at his 250 WWII letters
- Jennifer Lopez Turns Wicked Premiere Into Family Outing With 16-Year-Old Emme
- The company planning a successor to Concorde makes its first supersonic test
- Why Cynthia Erivo Needed Prosthetic Ears for Wicked
- Threat closes Spokane City Hall and cancels council meeting in Washington state
- Judith Jamison, acclaimed Alvin Ailey American dancer and director, dead at 81
- Realtor group picks top 10 housing hot spots for 2025: Did your city make the list?
- Wildfires burn from coast-to-coast; red flag warnings issued for Northeast
Ranking
- How to watch new prequel series 'Dexter: Original Sin': Premiere date, cast, streaming
- The Stanley x LoveShackFancy Collaboration That Sold Out in Minutes Is Back for Part 2—Don’t Miss Out!
- All Social Security retirees should do this by Nov. 20
- Apologetic rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine gets 45 days in prison for probation violations
- Current, future North Carolina governor’s challenge of power
- 'Unfortunate error': 'Wicked' dolls with porn site on packaging pulled from Target, Amazon
- Gavin Rossdale Makes Rare Public Appearance With Girlfriend Xhoana Xheneti
- Horoscopes Today, November 10, 2024
Recommendation
Trump issues order to ban transgender troops from serving openly in the military
Voters in Oakland oust Mayor Sheng Thao just 2 years into her term
All Social Security retirees should do this by Nov. 20
Voters in Oakland oust Mayor Sheng Thao just 2 years into her term
'Most Whopper
Jack Del Rio leaving Wisconsin’s staff after arrest on charge of operating vehicle while intoxicated
Benny Blanco Reveals Selena Gomez's Rented Out Botanical Garden for Lavish Date Night
All the Ways Megan Fox Hinted at Her Pregnancy With Machine Gun Kelly