DRINKING WITH MY DOCTOR

Copy Protected, Allan Shore 2004-05

Doctor's permission, that is. Drinking with your doctor's permission. This may well be the secret we have all been waiting for.

After a lifetime of counter messages, it turns out that way too much of our common knowledge has been wrong. Alcohol has the kind of medicinal qualities we who imbibe dream about. Apparently it does more than give us the warm and delicious feeling the morning after. It can actually make us heart and body healthy.

It's so good at what it does, in fact, that I bet you my doctors want to prescribe the dang stuff as part of my well-balanced health plan.

So I figure why not take them up on the offer? The more reasons the merrier!

Here's how I figured that out: I had a heart attack.

Mine is one of those typical stories of a middle age White male with a slight (okay, a little more than slight) weight concern and, as I now know, a heart malformation—something known as a cardiac muscle bridge.

After my initial recovery and verification that nothing major was noticed in the electronic pictures, they dropped the broken heart stuff on me: I was apparently born defective in more ways than I thought. One of the arteries that feeds my heart grew inside instead of on the surface of my heart muscle, causing basically repeated blood flow blockage every time my heart pumps.

"Look at it this way," the wise doctor said. "No sense waiting around for the fatty blockages. God just built them in for you."

A comforting thought.

But she did proffer some good news: "It's not too late." We can make you better, faster, stronger and all of that. Just follow the typical regimen of exercise and relaxation and take a few hands full of medication everyday.

And, of course, diet.

Everything in moderation was the basic dietary advice: cut out any fast, flavorful, fun items and, of course, drop all the cheap food stuff (particularly if it comes with an incentive toy or super size option). "Food is important," that she made very clear: important to the point that it pretty much needs to be avoided. Halve the calories. Reduce the carbs. Way, way limit the salt. And unless I can subsist on one Lay's Potato Chip, skip the crispy snacks.

Hellishly clear enough.

But there was a good-hearted exception: Alcohol. It turns out that the studies have shown rather convincingly that the decades of post-Prohibition fear are pretty much wrong. Alcohol has major health and heart benefits!

Well … maybe. (There appears to be some fuzzyheaded thinking on this subject, I've come to discover.) There are nutritional and cardiovascular benefits of importance, that is for certain. Red wine in particular—a personal favorite—contains the sustenance of grapes that have fought off the enemies of their own survival, leaving in their juices the essence of their growth tactics, something that seems to induce longevity in humans. By consuming a grape's juices, we gain the protections of its survival struggles.

Now how's that as an antidote for what ails you?

But it doesn't stop there. "Hard" alcohol is also life affirming, at least for us men. The bourbon berry, or whatever it is that makes for mixed drinks, seems to release its own anti-stress elements and it thins out the blood—perhaps even giving Aspirin a run for its money in this regard.

All right, all right; I know there are deleterious impacts that can't be ignored, which the doctor was first to reinforce.

"Too much of the stuff can be addicting."

No kidding, doctor, I thought. My family is a testament to that.

And, of course, alcohol has a very wicked friend. It jazzes up the biggest evolutionary failure of our time: our snack gland. "I don't know about you," she said, "but alcohol makes me see double whenever good, bad or indifferent foodstuff is in sight."

But wait, I thought, no sense throwing out the bottle with the pizza. Perhaps there are ways to get the best of both worlds? Exercise can actually turn out to be my personal savior. Regular and consistent is important, of course. The doctor even prescribed walking fast or running around the neighborhood at three or more miles per hour for 20 consecutive minutes each day. It keeps the pressure and pulse working well.

Cool. So why not compound the benefits as if this all were a living smorgasbord?

This fits. I can now justifiably wander the hills of my neighborhood and stop by the store to pick up all the fish and vegetables I can comfortably stomach. Plus, by carrying home Merlot and a few bottles of mixer, I do my weight lifting at the same time and I free myself to drink of the elixirs of life!

What a cocktail of progress. 

Then it hit me like a brick floor after a night of indulgence. I happened to be seated in my lazy chair at the time contemplating my cardiac rehab exercises when I thought, "why not make it even better and combine those beasts with the drinking?" If I serve myself up a healthy red wine before walking or jogging off my tushie, would I not explode the benefits I receive? Or would not bourbon and Coke ease the tedium of my stationary bike ride—something at that time I was doing regularly in the doctor's health gym, strapped to wires and monitors?

What a way to double my medical pleasures.

"Sorry," the doctor says when I gave this idea a shot by inquiring about what happens when all the good advice is stirred together. "You're mixing apples and oranges—both good fruits, mind you, but widely differing flavors. What's good on one hand and bad on the other may or may not be good or bad together."

Which means what, I asked, for me as a conscientious patient.

"We're not really sure," she continued, "No one really knows, even when we tell you to drink the alcohol. So just do what I tell you."

Then another brilliant idea struck.

Why shouldn't she and I get drunk together, right now, before I climb on board the equipment? (The doctor gets to share because I hate drinking alone and there is a bit of romanticism in the whole idea of an empty sweat-stale room.)

We could see her medical advice in action, right now, perhaps even doing a study. We would, after all, be recording the results for posterity (or publication) via all the equipment strapped around my body?

Why not just see what happens? We might even end up with 100% proof of what a heart-healthy soul gets from being drunk during his medical treatment.

She didn't seem thrilled with that idea.

So I tried another tactic. "There are political pluses to my whole idea. We could get our wine as part of our new medical prescription plans. Rare vintages that I can't afford would now be available for the price of my co-pay." The regular price of some of my normal heart medications, for example, is easily $200 to $400 or more, or about the same as some of the other medications I take.

And I could definitely live with having someone else cover that tab for a case or two of cellar stuffers.

No go on that one either, the doctor said, her eyes clearly searching for a quick way out of the entire conversation.

She let me know once again that I was now confusing the nutritional benefits from consuming alcohol with the physical impact of having alcohol in my veins and arteries.

"Had I already tried this plan out this morning," she inquired?

And the insurance issue was problematic too. She seemed to think there would be some concern about the efficacies of having patients try to balance themselves in a drunken state on the hospital's exercise machines.

"The only thing I can say for sure," she said in her most reassuring professional voice, "is that if I write you a prescription for a vintage my insurance company is going to have its own version of a heart attack."

Okay, I said, but the questions remain: If the medical profession is going to recommend alcohol as part of a healthy heart prescription, shouldn't we all know more about what actually happens when I drink the stuff? What about my blood pressure when I run or bike loaded to my gills? Surely we should try this one out in the safety of the hospital gymnasium before I head out to the streets for a drunken run?

And my cholesterol? Think about the pizza, doctor. (I for one can't stop thinking about the damn thing.)

"Try not to drink too much," was all she said.

And then she killed: "Be careful when you're drunk; we're really not entirely sure what all of this will do to your Viagra."

Great. That helped.

"Oh," she said sagely as she slipped out the door. "Red wine … that's definitely good. But try bourbon and Diet Coke. No sense getting drunk and fat."

Now there's some solid advice, doc.