A Story of Alcohol - How Can Alcoholic Beverages Enrich Your Life?!

Alcohol can give people a good time, make them forget their sorrows, lift their spirits, and make them happy. But there are pitfalls, too: alcohol can crush people and sometimes even kill them. I remember my late father telling me this from the time I was a little boy. "Alcohol, cigarettes, and women can ruin a man. These are the three things to watch out for!” This became a family saying, and it became etched in my mind.

As far as I can remember, my late grandfather was the only heavy drinker among my relatives. He always had a bottle of sake on hand and seemed to drink whenever he had free time. Thinking about it, he was 75 years old just before he passed away, so he must have enjoyed drinking with a lot of thoughts and feelings going through his mind. Therefore, it may be a mistake to conclude that he was a heavy drinker. In any case, since my father didn’t really drink much and my mother did not drink at all, my DNA suggests that my own tolerance for alcohol was fair and that I did not come from a family of heavy drinkers.

I first drank alcohol when I was in junior high school. At the time, I was drinking a beer with my classmates and thinking, "So this is beer.” I thought it was bitter and tasteless, but at the same time I thought it was cool to drink beer. Then as the secret drinking sessions became more and more frequent, beer parties with everyone became more and more enjoyable. In the Showa period, perhaps that was the only way to enjoy weekend evenings together.

Looking back on my life since then, I have no recollection of ever having indulged in alcohol. In junior high and high school, I was devoted to tennis and practiced so hard that many nights I was so tired that I would fall asleep as soon as I got home. After entering college in the U.S., I drank more beer than I had expected, and I was astonished by the huge parties around the campus of USC in 1976. The streets were blocked off, a stage was built, and the famous rock band, The Beach Boys, performed an outdoor concert. In addition, Budweiser, a beer company, brought huge tanks of draft beer on a truck, which the college students drank for free. This may seem unbelievable in today's world of underage drinking, but it is a true story. The college students at USC all became fans of Budweiser and I certainly was one of them.

However, I never became addicted to alcohol. I became a Christian in high school and in college I went to church on weekends. In the U.S., many churches have daily meetings, so I went to church three nights a week. I had no time to indulge in alcohol. Thus, while I was in college, I continued to study hard while playing music, but I never indulged in alcohol. Many students at American universities are very diligent with their studies and the stress is very high, but I believe that the reason I did not indulge in alcohol was because of my faith.

Then, after graduating from college and graduate school, I began traveling back and forth between the U.S. and Japan every month from 1985 due to business commitments. After all, I had started my own business in the U.S. and even became a church pastor in Japan, so it took a lot of work. I was under a lot of stress and had to travel back and forth between Japan and the U.S. I am amazed at how I was able to put up with it all. However, as a result of the excessive stress, I fell ill with Ménière's syndrome around 1990 and was hospitalized for a week for the first time. It took a year to recover.

Let's go back to 1985. At that time, an economy class ticket to the U.S. would have cost about $5-700. Then good news came. ANA (All Nippon Airways at that time) started international flights to Los Angeles in 1986. Fortunately, several of my church friends were working as flight attendants, or stewardesses, for ANA. They invited me to fly with ANA, and since it was the anniversary of the flight, I was upgraded to business class for free. I thought this was a lucky deal, and before long I was flying business class between Japan and the U.S. American Airlines followed suit. Later, American Airlines followed suit and distributed coupons to travel agencies, offering free upgrades from economy to business class. Thus, in the 1980s, I was happy to be able to fly back and forth in business class without spending a lot of money.

As a result, my life would undergo a bit of a transformation. I learned to appreciate wine. In business class, champagne, white wine, and red wine are always offered as options along with beer. So, I decided to drink whatever I could get my hands on, because nothing is better than free wine. Red, white, yellow, every wine I saw was delicious! I could drink them all so easily that it seemed like a good idea. Then one day, I had the good fortune of flying in first class on JAL using a free ticket. The wine served there was a domestic brand called Kōshuu wine. I was absolutely amazed at how splendid the taste was. I was so impressed with the taste that from then on I became a fan of Japanese wines. Thus, in the late 80's, I became a wine drinker and a beer drinker.

For the next 20 years or so, I think I only drank beer and wine. To begin with, I still don't think strong drinks like whiskey and bourbon taste good, and I don't like sweet drinks like cocktails either. I usually started with a beer to moisten my palate, followed by a beer or wine depending on the ingredients. In 1998, however, I started to change my preference in alcoholic beverages. In 1998, five years after founding Sound House, I opened Yamato no Yu, a top-notch day-trip natural spring facility in Narita. On its third floor, I established a sushi bar named Shion, where guests could pick up sushi and enjoy drinks while taking in the view. Then, when reviewing the sake menu, I began to seriously compare sake for the first time to determine which sake was the best. Since I had hardly ever drank sake before, I started by familiarizing my palate with it first, but it would take me quite a while to get a taste for it.

However, as I gradually came to appreciate the taste of sake, I was impressed by its depth. From the 2000s onward, my own dining table would be colored by beer, wine, and sake as the three main choices. However, the intense workload at Sound House, which I founded in 1993, had reached a level far beyond my initial imagination, and I had no time to indulge in alcohol. I was also a man of faith, and I had the belief that one should never get drunk, so perhaps I was fortunate in that I was never crushed by alcohol. Anyway, enjoying the food and the alcohol along with it became a daily pleasure.

Corona was the cause of this slight change in lifestyle. During the Corona disaster, which forced me into hibernation, I found myself drinking more and more, even while working at home. Then, I found myself drinking so much that I think my alcohol consumption almost doubled. Even so, I made sure to monitor my liver in medical checkups, so I felt somewhat safe. However, I was still a little worried. I had made up my mind to drink only two drinks until then, but now, even though I promised myself so at the beginning, I found myself having a third or fourth drink before I could stop myself. This is not good!

My biggest concern is the change in my tolerance for alcohol as I age. Until then, I could drink a bottle of wine and work until midnight without a problem. I once worked on an airplane for 10 hours straight while enjoying a bottle of wine. However, as I have grown older, this is not always the case. I sometimes would get sleepy and fall asleep! It is not uncommon these days to find myself falling asleep and waking up 1-2 hours later. This is shocking. I had always prided myself on being a strong drinker, but I was no longer one, and the phenomenon of aging was getting the better of me. There was nothing I could do about it. The only thing I can do is to adjust my drinking according to my age.

This is the history of my own drinking experience. Why am I writing about something as boring as this? It is because there is no end to the number of people around me who are addicted to alcohol and have become alcoholics. Remember the saying, “What ruins a man is alcohol, cigarettes, and women”? Alcohol is at the top of the list and it needs to be used with caution.

Finally, I will leave everyone with some real imparting wisdom about alcohol. These are true and inspiring words that everyone should keep in mind.

Wine causes mocking, and beer causes fights; everyone led astray by them lacks wisdom. (Proverbs 20:1)

because dru nks and gluttons tend to become poor, and drowsiness will clothe them in rags. (Proverbs 23:21)

And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,Ephesians 5:18