britone mwasaru

While on transit with friends, one asked me a question. He asked “Have I become an alcoholic?” It was a curious question which deserves a little background. We were tired and he had had a few cans of beer for this question to come up. Here we were, seated waiting for our means to get back home to roll in and he asks this question.

The first thing that came to mind was whether he is asking for permission to drink more or he has really seen an issue (self diagnose). I almost said “Bro, get some more if you want to” plus maybe add that “you don’t need anyone’s permission to drink”. Instead I said “If you are asking that question then maybe you have a problem and its for you to really gauge if you are drinking too much but I figure you are just feeling that because we are just about to get on a long ride back home and you want to pass time”. Long story short, he didn’t get more beers.

Why did this come up while I was on my morning walk? Clearly, it’s because I listen to podcasts on my 1.5 hours walks. I was listening to the 25th episode of No Stupid Questions podcast (https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-hedonism-better-than-self-control-nsq-ep-25/) in which Angela Duckworth mentions Harry Frankfurt and his philosophy around freedom of will. Simple put the “want and want to want”. She makes a reference to ice cream which can be replaced with beer for our case. May be? Here are her words based on the episode’s transcript

But I think the real issue is this: What do you want, and what do you want to want? As the great philosopher Harry Frankfurt said, “The heart of free will is to line up your wants — you want an ice cream cone — and your want to wants. If you want the ice cream cone and you want to want the ice cream cone, eat the goddamn ice cream cone. If you want the ice cream cone and you don’t want to want the ice cream cone, that’s a different story.”

My friend had to interrogate his want to want a beer and see if it has become an issue. Heh!