Sophistication & Downhill In The Same Bottle

Isn´t it funny that your sophistication and your ruin can be represented through the same glass of wine?

You can collect expensive wines or prefer special beers, or have your sleeping pill in a form of whiskey in a beautiful cristal glass. - and you are seen intelligent, sophisticated, cultural knowing person.

But if you even once take a few too much and seem like you have just awaken from anesthetic, you are looked down on, "oh, this one has issues".

People use the expensive wines, special beers and whiskey to mainly calm down their nerves, but it can easily lead to addiction which then can easily lead to a serious downhill.

I find it funny (although I Know that in reality it isn´t, but you know as a consumed product), I don't think there is nothing alike - good and bad in the same package - with an approved stamp from most of humans on Earth.

We have found a product that is not good for us (ethanol), and if you now think that "well red wine is!", no, the good in red wine are the flavonoids which comes from the grape, the ethanol part, I think is still questionable if it is good for us or not. But what I have read recently, it is suggested that that people should decrease their weekly amount of ethanol.

When you use alcohols real name, ethanol, it truly starts to have an different meaning in your head. It´s not that light word anymore you know, but a word that takes your mind into laboratories, chemical reactions, liquids, and, well danger.

I am now going to make it a little bit worse, because why stop now as I have already started.

Here is how Wikipedia defines alcohol (I suppose in this case Wikipedia is a reliable source of information):

"Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is a simple alcohol with the chemical formula C2H6O. Its formula can be also written as CH3−CH2−OH or C2H5OH (an ethyl group linked to a hydroxyl group). Ethanol is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid with a characteristic wine-like odor and pungent taste. It is a psychoactive, recreational drug, and the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks."

After reading that, I had to Google the word "psychoactive"; From Wikipedia again;

"A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent, or psychotropic drug, is a chemical substance that changes functions of the nervous system and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior.[1] These substances may be used medically, recreationally, or spiritually; to purposefully improve performance or alter one's consciousness; as entheogens for ritual, spiritual, or shamanic purposes, or for research."

Then, I got stuck with the words, "drug" and "shamanic purposes". Funny and not funny, again.

I got a good example of the use of ethanol yesterday when I went to swimming hall with my family. I encountered my kids´ friends family there and I chatted with the mother in the sauna and when they were about to leave, the mother said; We still need to go Prisma (big grocery store) and Alko.

Alko is where we Finns can buy beveradges that have more than 5,5%of alcohol:

"Alko Inc is the national alcoholic beverage retailing monopoly in Finland. It is the only store in the country which retails beer over 5.5% ABV, wine (except in vineyards) and spirits.[1] Alcoholic beverages are also sold in licensed restaurants and bars but only for consumption on the premises.

Alko is required by law to sell drinks with lower alcohol content than 5.5% and non-alcoholic alternatives, but in practice carries a very limited stock of low alcohol beer, cider and non-alcoholic drinks and others as supermarkets are allowed to sell those at a substantially lower price. By law, alcoholic drinks may only be sold to those aged 18 or above." Wikipedia....

So now wines from the supermarket! Only beer and cider, and so good Long Drink...And there isn´t Alkos everywhere, so if you want something strong, you might have to plan the day when you are going to visit.

But back to the swimming hall. So, when the mother was leaving and said that they need to go to Alko, we had this dialogue;

Me: "Oh, I went last week to Alko and bought 3l pack of wine, which I call "the autumn delight", I find it great, because it lasts the whole month."

She; "We did that too, but it lasted only for two weeks, so we have moved on to bottles directly, it´s also easier to evaluate when its finishing"

Me; "Yeah, that´s true, last week when the pack didn't have much left I ordered my partner to open the bag inside the pack with scissors and save every drop that still was inside it, *laughing*"

Then we said our goodbyes, but when I returned to the pool, I thought; Did I say too much? Or did she? Although I knew that there is no drinking problem in either of our families, I thought if that was a proper conversation to have with someone you have only talked with once before. I pondered if I gave a bad second impression, did she now imagine me at home, licking desperately the rests of a 3l wine pack. Or did she maybe thought that someday we might enjoy a glass of wine together as we share the same "hobby". Or did she also ponder telling too much?

The line between sophistication and ruin is constantly evaluated with ethanol users, it truly is a two-sided product. But it is a quite good product too...But let´s not go there as I am already finishing this post, it would steer the meaning towards another direction, when the main point of this was:

Alcohol aka ethanol is bad for you, don't use it. (much).

(if you notice that you start to produce saliva when looking at the picture of this post, well, notice it)