Springboard 9: 99 Bottles of beer.
Alcoholism is big with law enforcement. Do you drink?
A simple question, but I don’t think there’s really a simple response. If it were that easy cop bars would serve more coffee and an integral part of my upbringing would be forever altered.
I live in South B where alcohol isn’t just a past time but a way of life. Yes. I drink. Alcohol has always had a place in my life. As far back as I can remember my father would come home from a shift to a finger or two of Beam. I never questioned it. As I became an adult I would join him in a drink. I bought to first shot he served at Pogue. I was the one who drank the last before the bar was sold.
The medical examiner in me still has to question…why do we do it? What is it about wearing a badge that fosters the need to self-medicate ourselves by flooding our central nervous system with a substance that is essentially poison?
We drink to wash it all away. To silence those demons that fester in our skulls with every new case, every new body. We drink to forget and to forgive. To forget the fact that we’re not always going to be able to provide justice to those who deserve it. To forgive ourselves the self-preservation of professional objectivity. To forgive ourselves that we can only do just so much. We drink to celebrate the gains, mourn the losses, to toast the fact we made it to the end of another day and lived to talk about it. We drink because deep down inside most of us hate our jobs. Not the work…but the job. We drink because for every case that is closed, four more open. Each as heinous and pointless as the one before. The victories are too few and far between and the gratification, when it comes, is all too fleeting. We drink because there’s no such thing as a good week of work in this business. For us to do our jobs someone has to be a victim. We drink because we’re the lucky ones. Because we still can.
A simple question, but I don’t think there’s really a simple response. If it were that easy cop bars would serve more coffee and an integral part of my upbringing would be forever altered.
I live in South B where alcohol isn’t just a past time but a way of life. Yes. I drink. Alcohol has always had a place in my life. As far back as I can remember my father would come home from a shift to a finger or two of Beam. I never questioned it. As I became an adult I would join him in a drink. I bought to first shot he served at Pogue. I was the one who drank the last before the bar was sold.
The medical examiner in me still has to question…why do we do it? What is it about wearing a badge that fosters the need to self-medicate ourselves by flooding our central nervous system with a substance that is essentially poison?
We drink to wash it all away. To silence those demons that fester in our skulls with every new case, every new body. We drink to forget and to forgive. To forget the fact that we’re not always going to be able to provide justice to those who deserve it. To forgive ourselves the self-preservation of professional objectivity. To forgive ourselves that we can only do just so much. We drink to celebrate the gains, mourn the losses, to toast the fact we made it to the end of another day and lived to talk about it. We drink because deep down inside most of us hate our jobs. Not the work…but the job. We drink because for every case that is closed, four more open. Each as heinous and pointless as the one before. The victories are too few and far between and the gratification, when it comes, is all too fleeting. We drink because there’s no such thing as a good week of work in this business. For us to do our jobs someone has to be a victim. We drink because we’re the lucky ones. Because we still can.