Doctor: Your liver is getting hardened into a corpse. This is it. Your story is about to get over.

Patient: What? How long before the rug gets pulled from under my feet?

Dr: No need to be so dramatic. Do you drink?

P (boasting): No. Not a drop in last 30 years. Just had a glass of beer at an office party in 1757. Did not enjoy it. I said, thank you very much and kept myself ‘clean’ after that.

Dr (downcast): Oh, then what’s the point in hanging on?

P: You mean is it good news or bad?

Dr: Do such distinctions exist for a teetotaler?

P: I can insinuate the same. Every news, or the lack of it, is an opportunity for you to wet your beak.

If anything happens, you need to drink to comprehend the import.

If nothing does, you drink to kill the boredom of wait.

You long for port and brandy in choppy waters, spill champagne during celebrations, douse you frustrations in arrack or rum, prefer beer at reunions and vodka for deception, gin for ejaculations and whiskey for pretty much every occasion. Add wine to this mix, which you consider holier than water, the elixir of life.

Do good and bad even make sense to you?

Dr(chastened): My brother, do not get me wrong. I want you to live. But what is the point of such dry existence, is all I ask?

P: But isn’t that your point of view? I just want to keep on living, and as I see it, I have a better shot at surviving because I do not drink, and thus am in a position to keep my liver going for a longer period, than if had been drinking!

Dr: Slow down, man. If possible, take a pause! Reflect on the reality. You managed to ruin your liver even ‘without drinking’. Now how do you propose to save the rest of it ‘without drinking’? Common sense suggests that you change tactics for a better result.

P: Are you a doctor, or a bum?

Dr:  I am a man of medicine. Before that, I’m a man of science. But above everything, I’m a man of logic. You cannot get a different result with same inputs, all other conditions remaining the same.

P: I can see that this logic is incontrovertible. Please write me a prescription.

Dr: You might find the writing undecipherable,

The prescription, though, is simple,

Go to any damn chemist,

Ask him to direct you to a wine shop,

A bottle each of single malt, Smirnoff and chardonnay,

Throw in some pints of beer,

The good ol’ Old Monk do not forget,

Get tequila for the last shot,

Someday we shall down it together,

Go, sailor, rush,

Hoard these provisions,

Prepare,

Label them ‘medication’,

Begin the celebration,

You’re lucky, can still savour drinks like a virgin,

There is still time before you kick the bucket,

Fill yourself up to the brimful,

Compensate for decades of soberness,

Go, with joy, go,

What is the point of life anyway?

Existence is drudgery to be borne every day.

The patient, satiated, well irrigated, died soon after.

The good doctor considered this as a case dealt successfully and consumed a bottle of single malt to honour their short-lived association.

---

#arrack #gooddoctor #doctor #patient #Alcohol #beer #rum #whiskey #singlemalt #vodka #chardonnay #wine #port #brandy #gin #liver #cirrhosis #CLD #chronicliverdisease #oldmonk #irrigation #satisfaction #prescription #satiated #conversation