Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through an apocalypse, son.
In my previous post, I reminded my readers that catastrophes almost never come with free-flowing alcohol, restaurant service or hitting the blunt. A sobering article (pardon the pun) that I linked to deserves its own entry.
The title of this Axios article – “Virus vices take a toll on Americans” – says it all. What does an affluent society do when it’s trapped indoors for weeks or months? Apparently, the answer is that it drinks more booze, smokes more weed, watches more porn, and gets fatter and lazier.
In short, America’s becoming Delta House.
Double-Secret Probation
This is understandable, to a degree. This unprecedented disaster, and the economic and societal uncertainty that will haunt us all for years to come, has everyone stressed out, and in bad times, people lean on their favorite ways to deal.
My wife is an operating room nurse. On a good day, she unwinds with a glass of wine; on a bad day, she asks me to mix her a cosmopolitan. Suffice it to say, these days I’m glad as a prepper that my larder includes cranberry juice.
But listen, folks – you have to keep mentally and physically healthy.
Some of you have oodles of free time on your hands. Others, like me, have very little. Whether you have 12 hours a day or 12 minutes, you can’t for the sake of your sanity be filling it with Netflix, Call of Duty and Pornhub. Read (or write!) a book. Play a board game with your kids. Solve sudoku puzzles.
And you have to get exercise, or something resembling it. If you have a home gym or an elliptical, hit it. Jog or walk – jog or march in place if you can’t leave your house. You have something heavy with a handle on it? You have weights. Think outside the box.
When your quarantine is lifted, you’re going to be stepping out of your cave into a changed world. When it comes to the shape you need to be in to make it through, Dean Wormer’s admonition of the hapless Flounder rings true.