The Good, The Bad And The Silly

As I sit in front of my laptop i told myself I’ll post something you my padawan friends would be delighted to read about. After having a nice lounge session with my buddies at home, I decided to share some light on my entry’s subject. To Keith, Dyason, Alvin, Chris my family and friends, this one’s for you.

“Drinking is bad. It messes up your organs, makes you bad company and destroys your life.”

It’s hard to go against an argument so solidly backed by empirical evidence and statistics. Alcohol consumption when carried out to an extreme, thus lead to bad outcomes. But the question is, should all manner of drinking be lumped with alcoholism and uniformly condemned as a vice?

Coming from a guy like me who’s going semi-retired on drinking, I don’t have the right answer for you. And then again, being a responsible web journalist who checks the facts before he writes, what I can do is to go through the pros and cons. Then you decide for yourself whether drinking is good for you or not.




The Good :

Some studies have found alcohol helpful in fighting against heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular ailments in middle-aged people. They suggest that maximum benefit can be derived from a regular regimen that involves limited amounts of drink.

The idea that moderate drinking protects against cardiovascular diseases has a biological basis. Moderate amounts of alcohol raise the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol) , and higher HDL levels have been associated with better protection against cardiovascular ailments. Moderate consumption has also been associated with better insulin sensitivity and the prevention of blood clots that may choke arteries.

The Bad:

There’s no lack of literature on the evils of alcoholism, I’ll make no bones about this: uncontrolled imbibing is going to ruin you! Excessive alcohol fries your liver and your kidney like no one else’s business, damages brain functions, exacerbates clinical depression, wreaks havoc on your already pathetic-life and the list goes on….



Alcoholism is Bad. Period.


The Silly:

Given the heading of this entry, you’ll probably think that I’ll be going on about the ills of alcoholism. No, I’m not going into that- haven’t I already done it? The silliness I want to talk about is that of intellectual laziness.

To some extent, all of us are creatures of fashion. We frequently hear people around us saying things like drinking is bad, smoking is bad, gambling is bad, and the likes. Depending on your socioeconomic status, significant others and other factors, it may indeed be fashionable to admit that certain things are bad. I’m sure you already realize how uncool it would be to champion the cause of Big Tobacco! In our bid to stay on the right side of the divide, we go around mouthing cliché’s that are so tired they could fall asleep any moment!

Do you regularly chow down a juicy beef burger overflowing with oil and fats? A lot of good that does your heart! How about soda and cola’s? Calories galore with zero nutritional value about to skull-fuck your system at any given time.



Unless our definition of “the god life” is nothing short of a Spartan regimen of the most austere kind, we’re probably harming our bodies one way or another most of the time. As a case in point, I just had deep-fried fish fillet for lunch earlier today.

Things get problematic, however, when we classify our beliefs and actions into “god and “bad” according to the dictates of the prevailing fashion; and beyond a certain point, we slide down the slippery slope into unmitigated intellectual laziness.

So, don’t jump into hasty conclusions. Do your homework, widen your perspectives, then think through the issues carefully. By deciding for yourself whether you ought to drink or not, and how much you should consume in the event that you decide to do so, your taking a neat step forward on your journey towards becoming “free citizens of the universe."




i wonder when is the next Lounge Session..hmmm :D