NI vs. AI
Alcohol and Other Traps - Sometimes AI Is Superior
September 26th, 2024. This is NI versus AI podcast episode four. And I'm going to talk about a serious subject today and something I'll probably only ever discuss once because a lot of podcasts cover this extensively and they cover it well. Also, it's a very personal topic for me. So it's a little uncomfortable to discuss, but I do feel that it will help someone at some point if nobody else me. And the topic, the overriding topic today is alcohol and alcohol is a muk. And I want to discuss that within the lens of NI versus AI. All right, so back in episode one, I told you that we live in a, you know, a conspiracy reality. I mean, no, that was episode two, where the powers that be try to sort of keep us down. And in episode one, I told you that natural intelligence and artificial intelligence are, well, natural intelligence is solely biological, but artificial intelligence can be both biological and machine. And I also mentioned that NI versus AI is not a normative thing. It's not like NI is always good and AI is always bad. And the topic today is especially relevant to that point because when it comes to alcohol and alcoholism, NI can get you in a lot of trouble and AI can get you out of it or at least set you on the path out of it. So here goes. Alcohol is probably the most destructive single force in our society. When you think about it, how many health care dollars go to treating people who are sick with alcohol related illnesses? How many murders happen? How many families break up? How many unwanted children are there? How many, you know, birth defects, whatever, the list goes on and on and on and on. And, you know, that's to say nothing about the absolute hell that is endured by alcoholics themselves and those who love them. So, yeah, this is a very destructive force and yet it's not only legal but glamorized. I mean, even the movies that deal with it seriously, like leaving Las Vegas, you know, there's a certain amount of romance and glamour there, like Nicholas Cage goes to Vegas to drink himself to death and meets this, you know, beautiful escort, you know, with a hooker with a heart of gold type thing and there's, like, a certain romance to it or the hangover. Look how insane people get on alcohol. It's not funny. Well, no, it's not funny. It's tragic, you know, or, you know, shaken, not stood, you know, the hero there with his, you know, elegant beverage or just they always portray it in a positive light, even when it's not in a positive light, like in leaving Las Vegas. So, why do they do this? It's because alcohol is a trap that is set for us, one of many, and all you have to do is look at the people at the top of the alcohol industry, shall we say. I mean, didn't P. Diddy run some big booze distributor, you know, the Bronfman family, what wonderful people they are with their nexiom global human trafficking cult and so forth. You know, it's intentional. It's conspiracy reality. They put this stuff out there and glorify it because it keeps people down. When it comes to alcoholism, I can tell you that it's not what a lot of people think. A lot of people think an alcoholic is just somebody who drinks too much or somebody who's health is affected because they drink too much or something like that. But I think that what it is and what it is with all the other traps too is that alcoholism, no matter whether you just drink once a month or you drink from morning until night, every single day, it's going to lead you to a dark, putrid cloud of regret, guilt, shame, self-loathing. It's going to lead you to a really dark place where you don't like yourself and it's like that with all these traps. And NI is what helps you, your natural intelligence is what helps you to fall into these traps because it's really easy to rationalize yourself into drinking even if you're an alcoholic. In this case, when I was about 21 years old, someone told me, "Chuck, please don't make me watch you drink yourself to death." And I was like, "What do you mean?" Back then, I didn't even have the money to be an alcoholic. I went out once a week and had fun with my friends and I was young and healthy and whatever, but those words have stuck with me. And that was probably the first relationship that alcohol ever cost me. Even though it wasn't dramatic, the person just kind of drifted away from me because they saw it way before I did. But you see how that little demon on my shoulder was able to easily brush that off and say, "Ah, come on. They're full of it. You're not an alcoholic." And then the years go on and I was never the kind of alcoholic who drank every day. In fact, I very seldom drank two days in a row. I never had to have a medically assisted detox. A doctor never told me I was in poor health. In fact, I would go to the doctor and I see my doctor once a year for my checkup. And they say, "Oh, your liver's great. Your kidney's great. Your blood pressure's great. Your heart's great. Your triglycerides are perfect. Everything's good. See you next year. Ha ha ha ha." I'd walk out of the doctor's office and that little demon would be saying, "Hey, see? Seeing? Told you you're not an alcoholic. You're fine, man. You're healthier. You're half the body of a 28-year-old. So let's go out and celebrate." That's your natural intelligence talking you into it, thinking it through. Or you could be like, "I mean, I've never lost a job because of it. I don't think I ever even called in sick to work with a hangover. I went to work plenty of times with a hangover, but I never called in sick because of it." So my point is I didn't have the obvious consequences that a lot of alcoholics have. And for that reason, it was easy for me to just keep drinking and tell myself that I wasn't an alcoholic. But one consequence that is now very clear in my mind is that it has cost me a lot of relationships with people. There are probably a dozen people in this world who hate my guts because I was the biggest asshole in the world to them. And some of those people, yeah, there were people that maybe I'm better off without and there's the little demon again saying, "Yeah, that guy's a jerk. Who cares? I did you a favor. Let's burn the bridge, blow it up." And the thing with an exclamation point, "You'll never see that guy again. Ha ha ha ha." And in some cases, that was true. There were people that probably should have cut out of my life, but I could have done it a lot more gracefully. And there were other people, including one close family member who I love that just hate my guts because I was a jerk to them. And they may have provoked that in some way, but if they didn't deserve the sword that I drew and shoved into their gut or their heart, which I'm speaking figuratively, I've never attacked anyone physically, but with my words, yeah, I can be pretty mean. So recently, very recently, I did that to someone who had never been anything but kind to me, someone who I'm only now realizing now that I've nuked that bridge. I really liked that person and it makes me nauseous. I've been nauseous for four or five days straight now, just thinking about how awful it was. And in a way, it feels like I've done something like, I don't know, lashing out of an innocent child, you know, and you can see how screwed up alcoholic children, you know, the children of alcoholics become because, "Hey, there you are, an innocent kid." And all of a sudden you're subjected to a barrage of assholery from your alcoholic parent who's supposed to love you, right? And so, yeah, I've been feeling really, really bad about it and I've resolved that I never want to let that Mr. Hyde character come out ever again. And so this is a message to my future self, if there's one person who can benefit from this, you know, putting this out there, I guess it's me. Future Chuck, if you ever want to drink again, remember what happened last time you drank, pray to God that's the last time you drank. You know, remember what you did, remember what you said, remember how you felt and never do that again. I mean, don't take a chance, man. You know damn well you wouldn't have done that or felt that if you had been sober. So, yeah, you might go out and have a beer and have a good time and nobody gets hurt. You might do that ten times, but one of these days Mr. Hyde's going to rear his ugly head and you're going to end up feeling like you're feeling now. Yeah, and in the future, I'm, you know, once I write my ship and find my footing, I'm going to go on a holy war against alcohol and do everything I can to make it uncool and taboo and to say alcohol is for losers, you don't need anyone have a good time. You know, set up a ping pong table, invite some friends over, turn on some music, throw some stakes on the grill, you can have a good time without alcohol, you don't need that crap. Why would you drink solvent, you know? Anyway, so, yeah, so what does this have to do with NI versus AI? Well, you can see how NI, your natural intelligence can rationalize anything and convince you to drink, but AI, you know, a programmatic way of thinking can help you. Like, there's this thing that helps a lot of alcoholics called AA, and it's literally a program, it's steps, it's procedures that you follow. And so in this case, AI is superior to NI, and I hope that we can all, you know, get there someday and be good people. And by the way, alcohol is not the only track, there are a bunch of them, and they'll all lead you to the same dark place, so beware, use your natural intelligence to do the right thing. And if necessary, use artificial intelligence to correct your course. All right, good luck to everyone. Bye.