I want a new Drug

I recently heard of a new illness called Sleep Work Disorder. It is apparently for those individuals that worked third shift jobs for years and years and now cannot adjust to a regular sleep schedule.  I thought to myself that was just crazy. Another made up disease by the pharmaceutical companies to pump out a bunch of new drugs, much like Restless Leg Syndrome. That one makes me laugh.

But it occurred to me that for most of my adult life I have been staying out very late in bars. In years past I might have stayed out passed 2:00 AM at least four nights a week. I started to wonder that perhaps my inability to wake up at a normal morning time might be the result of Sleep Work Disorder. Not because I worked a late shift at some job, but I worked the late shift at too many bars over the years. And by work I mean drink.

I know it sounds pretty crazy but I seem to have all the symptoms of those suffering from Sleep Work Disorder; exhaustion during normal waking hours, restlessness, inability to concentrate, lethargy and sleeplessness at night.  It’s a scary thought that in all those fun years of staying out till 4:00 AM on a Wednesday might have been causing me some serious mental strife years later.  I mean, I wouldn’t dare blame the alcohol. That would just be far too easy. No, it must be something I just heard about and was likely just made up in the last two years. Yes, that has to be it. 

Not only does there seem to be some mental toll this Sleep Work Disorder has caused but there are physical troubles as well. You see, I never sit down at the bar. I will stand at the bar for six hours or more. The only time you’ll see me sitting down is if I am literally too exhausted to stand. I have been standing up at the bar for nearly all my drinking years and now, my back hurts. I know; how in the world could it have come to this? It’s quite clear that all those years of standing have caused my vertebra to compress and cause me some great discomfort.   Clearly it’s not due to my lack of exercise or diet, but obviously from my long stretches of standing.

I wonder if the pharmaceutical companies can come up with a drug to help those of us suffering from long term bar exposure.  I’m sure they could come up with something to help us continue to enjoy the bar experience without all the long term side effects that go along with it. Something like, Drinkitall XM or maybe, Boozalin. Oooh, how about Dionysusian. Yeah, I like Dionysusian. (For those of you that don’t know, Dionysus was the Greek God of Wine and Grapes)

So that’s what I’ll have to do. I’ll have to petition some generous pharmaceutical company to come up with a fake study regarding the long term effects of long nights of standing at a bar and then come up with the fake drug and then I’ll be rich.  Yes, obviously it’s a sound business plan. Now that I think of it, Fred Flintstone might have come up with something similar once. Or was that just a conversation at the bar?