Alcoholism

Classy Jacksonville is a vibrant breeding ground for alcoholism. No where else (except for maybe France or Germany, but you aren’t considered an alcoholic if you have a few drinks every night because it is socially acceptable there) will you find so many people who drink themselves to sleep every night and then go out on the weekend and get themselves so hella wasted. You might say that, oh yes but when I was in college, we used to really throw them back, or when I lived on the reservation, my grandfather would go through a bottle of Maneschevitz every night, but the fact of the matter is Classy Jacksonville would implode if not for alcohol because suddenly a large portion of the population would realize the direness of their situation and would probably commit suicide en masse. You might say that this view is very singular and isn’t taking into account the vast tapestry of life that is Classy Jacksonville, which it is, but I would beg to differ and lay out my argument. 

Classy Jacksonville encourages alcoholism. On Camp Lejeune, there is a store on the grand triumphant victory boulevard leading through the base that is open 24 hours a day called the “7 day store.” This store is specifically designed to funnel you back to where they keep the beer and liquor and if you inspect the shelves you will find the store has more shelves to devoted to alcohol than to various hygiene products such as toothpaste and shampoo and the like. Once you’ve been funneled back to the beer you find that you can buy a 24 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer for only $9.99. That’s 288 fluid ounces of beer for ten dollars! Milk isn’t even that cheap! Since it’s only a Tuesday night, you’ll forgo buying the 24 pack and buy the 12 pack for $5.85 and a bottle of Canadian club for $5 and be standing in the checkout remembering that you came here for something else entirely different but now you can’t even remember it. Since the 7 day store has only three overweight, very disgruntled, very slow, mouth breathers working the cashiers, you wind up standing in line for a good 20 minutes, listening to some grunts kicking a 36 pack of coor’s light along the ground talking about how hella wasted they are gonna get playing beer pong tonight. This frustrates you so much and the dreadful heat saps the life out of you so much that by the time you get back to your scenic barracks room overlooking the waste treatment plant, you desire nothing else but escaping into a blissful world of oblivion. Add into the mix the fact that all sorts of intelligent people will knock on your door and filter in and out leaving ever larger amounts of beer in your fridge, that even if you only intended on having one or two or not drinking at all, you find yourself drunk, wine spilt all over your floor, your mirror broken, singing Modest Mouse songs at the top of your lungs after having watched “Across the Universe” for the 7th time.

Classy Jacksonville creates alcoholics three ways: 1. A large group of young single men who have disposable incomes and will never live in fear of getting evicted from their barracks room or going hungry if they wasted their entire income on booze. 2. Making a large group of young single men live a place they have no desire to live in, far away from their family and friends, and make this place have practically no girls at all. These two factors combine to make a bunch of lonely men, who when compounded with the fact that a lot of them hate their jobs and the people they work for, find themselves incredibly depressed and having no future. 3. Alcohol is incredibly cheap on Camp Lejeune. When a 24 pack of PBR is cheaper than the equivalent amount of milk or gasoline, why not drink?

You might blame Alcoholism on the individuals themselves who suffer from it for having no self control and poor morals, but I would disagree. No one wants to accept the blame themselves especially when it’s so easy to go buy a bottle and forget about Jacksonville until the next morning.