Alcohol can be therapeutic.

If there is control, alcohol can be therapeutic.

There was once a teacher whom I have known as a quiet, friendly and helpful person. I had always found him ever ready to help. With his ready smile, he was so approachable. He went about his work with a discipline few have. As such, he was well respected by fellow teachers and his students.

Yet, each night I found him at a quiet coffee-shop, all by himself, drinking his beer. For hours he would be there slowly sipping beer from his glass, calmly looking nowhere. Usually he was left alone to finish his drinks as it was a well-known fact that he only wished to be left alone. Then, late at night, he would go to his bicycle and cycle home to sleep. That was his routine, day after day, seven days a week.

There was never any violence or wrong deeds by this teacher. Even in his old age, he was found to be one of the most congenial person his friends and relatives had ever known. From my knowledge of him, he was one of those very disciplined, self-controlled people, an exemplary human.

You see, he had this unhappiness in his family, a best forgotten episode in his life. And due to that, he stayed out of his home in the evenings, went for his drink, nursed it the whole evening and allowed his mind to cool down before he tiredly returned home to his bed to awake the next morning refreshed enough to carry on with his life. Thus, in his drink he found a solution to his problems, problems that could have a lesser man boil over into rage and some dastardly vengence that could have brought some kind of undesirable consequences.

Perhaps this story has nothing to do with the therapeutic effect on circulation, heat and sluggishness of the blood stream and the heart or the heart-beneficial effects of resveratrol found in red wine made from red grapes. However, it did help one man retain his characteristic coolness and calmness to carry on with his life as well as he could. In that way alcohol did help him and therefore it can be said to have been therapeutic.

Nonetheless, I would not recommend anyone to imbibing alcohol unless it is found to be essential to his well-being for it has been found to be difficult to prevent from overtaking one's control and has been more problematic than therapeutic.