Alcoholics: My Secret Fetish

I chose this image as an introduction because this is the attitude my friends and I had while I was in grad school.  Alcohol became a major component of my circle of friends, and pre-drinking our nights of drinking were common and necessary.  And it was in this Bacchanal college life that I discovered my fetish for alcoholics.  

I use the word "fetish" particularly, even though I'm referring to people.  Let me quote the all-knowing Wikipedia:

Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual focus on a nonliving object or nongenital body part.[1] The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish for that object is a fetishist.[2]...In common parlance, the word fetish is used to refer to any sexually arousing stimuli, not all of which meet the medical criteria for fetishism.[5] This broader usage offetish covers parts or features of the body (including obesity and body modifications), objects, situations and activities (such as smoking or BDSM).[5]   

So a fetish is a non-human object or action or features that stimulates the fetishist.  An alcoholic wouldn't classify as a fetish because an alcoholic is a person.

But the way I have experienced it, alcoholics aren't people.  They are artificially constructed performances.  The person who does the performance seems to be themselves, but they aren't.  Who they really are is someone different.  The alcohol brings out something entertaining, complex, fun, exciting, suave, brave, witty, and sexy.  

I've been with four alcoholics and none of them, at the height of their drunkenness, seemed like real people.  They were too unreal, like a fantasy walking the earth.  Everything they said was funny and perfect, everyone loved them and begged them to drink more and show up to more parties in the future.  They seduced me with great craft and success, and, funnily enough, could hardly follow through on their physical promises.

There were negative sides, of course, but those were difficult to see.  Fights could be terrible, and I would find myself screaming at them in the middle of the night.  But even that was exciting in its own way.  That level of anger can be thrilling, the relationship more dramatic, and the future in peril: would we ever make up?  And when we did, would it be sublime?

All of the men were extremely artistic and intellectual and brilliant.  And all of these qualities were made vibrant and electric by alcohol.  I found myself just as electrified by them; it was an incredible endless circle of stimulation, fantasy, drama, disappointment and hope.  But nothing ever worked out.  Nothing survived of the relationships.  Nothing could.  We were all harming ourselves, in different ways, and it was doomed from the beginning.

Luckily, two of the four alcoholics I have known are now sober. The other two I have lost contact with completely.  One of them, most likely, has drunk himself to death.  I hope not.  He was quite dazzling, though he never thought so sober.