Gout #12, Using Good for Evil

There is one interesting factor which should be mentioned if someone is making progress in improving health by reducing consumption of harmful substances. Be careful that all that good is not consumed by new “manageable” evil.

This was my first experience following a period where I quit drinking and I had gone the health nut/exercise route. I was doing Yoga on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and playing squash at least one of the Tuesdays/Thursdays. I was eating low carbohydrate and lots of vegetables. I was able to quit drinking and smoking for a period of 6 months and my health had improved greatly. I was meditating at least daily and everything was working great.

Slowly the alcohol began to reappear in my life – maybe it was a nicotine addiction that really forced the issue. Roy Master’s meditation had taken away the desire to get drunk, so that my drinking was under control, or at least was not producing unexpected negative consequences. Slowly I reintegrated into my old life and slowly I slipped into a remarkable pattern.

Friday night my cousin would come around and we would watch the races and bet on horses, maybe shoot the breeze and bullshit until 5am, fueled by alcohol – as an uncle used to say, “when the beer runs out so does the conversation”. I’d stay up and walk down to the local store at 7am to get more booze, and my brother would show up around noon, thirsty and eager. I would then drink with him all through Saturday to the early hours of Sunday or longer. These were really good sessions with a lot of fun and I paced myself so that I was never out of control, since I no longer desired the feeling of jumping into the abyss of hell.

I discovered that if I went to bed at around 6pm on Sunday evening and slept through to 9am (15 hour sleep) I actually felt quite good on Monday. Hollowed out and not 100% in the moment, but the pain of a hangover was avoided. Monday night yoga was exhausting and I sweated like crazy and there would be an empty shell for a head afterwards, but another good 10 hour sleep and Tuesday through Friday could be productive work days, particularly on the coffee.

This slowly crept into a pattern. I realized I had optimized my drinking to reduce harmful consequences, particularly the pain of hangovers. So the good things done for health can simply provide a greater buffer of tolerance for abuse. This is using good for evil! 

Similarly, if a healer was to take away disease and pain, it can lead to greater alcohol and drug abuse later. I think this is what is meant when people say that they “burn in the light” of some imagined salvation.