Alcoholic Aggrievances

Caution: Excessive amount of emoticons were murdered in this entry.

I slept a lot this afternoon – I went to Klinik Ooi to get my sore throat, flu and an impending fever sorted out, and when I was asked whether I prefer to have pills or a liquid medicine for my sore throat, I asked, what’s the difference? Which is more effective?

“Well, the cough syrup’s more effective, but if you don’t mind it causing drowsiness..”

Bring it on!, I said. Or something to that effect.

And I fell into a very deep slumber in the afternoon for about 4 hours right up till about 7pm. And felt utterly great when I woke up.

I also asked the good doctor – a passing question since I was there, is it normal to have diarrhoea the next morning after a night of drinking alcohol? She took to answer it very carefully, “Well, by definition ‘normal’ is something that everyone has or done, and since not everybody has diarrhoea after drinking alcohol, no, that’s not normal.” And she began explaining how I might be allergic to some of the contents of certain alcoholic drinks, and advised me to change brands to see if it’s still causing me the symptoms, and mentioned the Asahi beer wtf.

When I added that I have rash and felt itchy during drinking, she immediately leapt on it and said, “You’re definitely allergic to alcohol” and then mentioned ‘histamine’ (whatever that is) and there was a danger of it spreading to my lungs, and I would choke to death WTF….....

“If I were you, I will stop drinking. Alcohol isn’t important to life anyway.”

I was in a state of utter shock – first it’s dairy products, now a leisurely indulgence in my only vice (okay, that is debatable) could be out too? T__________T I have given up chocolates, cakes, ice-creams, milk, butter, some bread, cheese, among other dairy products, and to think I now might have to give up alcohol too!

WHAT HAVE I DONE IN MY PAST LIFE TO DESERVE THIS T______T_T______T______________T

But this is all too strange! Last year was probably when I started drinking way too much when I was backpacking in Cambodia and Vietnam with Gopi and Siew, and the only worst things that happened to me were puking and a hangover and that’s it. No diarrhoea whatsoever the next day.

It only happened fairly recently since a few months ago – if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that I’m probably allergic or too sensitive to contents of some alcoholic drinks like the doctor said. =/ God knows what it is – I can now cross off either whiskey or cognac or both (from what happened on my recent PD trip) from my drinking list because I had diarrhoea when I consumed both.

However! A quick google search returned no life-threatening news associated with alcohol, histamine, and choking wtf – the only thing I managed to gleam off the wise, sometimes fraudulent, Internet is this: that excessive drinking does cause diarrhoea, and some people are more sensitive over the effects of alcohol than others. I suspect I fall into that category. =(

I don’t think beer – which is my favourite alcoholic indulgence – would be in my possible banned drinking list, from what I remember when I drank two bottles of Leo’s every night when I was in Bangkok. But then again, drinking moderately is key, so no more drinking like a fish I guess. :/

I am aggrieved. I weighed heavily the possibilities of choking to death from drinking, and another quick googling revealed that happens only when I have.. asthma. Which I don’t have!

Whatever it is, I’m drinking moderately from now on. I know I sounded like I was trying to convince myself – but sigh, it’s a fairly important social tool for me, especially when drinking with friends and strangers alike. It probably was one of the factors behind the most fun aspects of my backpacking journey in Cambodia and Vietnam, when I was drinking with total strangers – the chummy, budding closeness and hilarity that ensued when one is losing control with part of his mind.