The Bliss of Suffering: Ben’s Beautiful Death by Alcohol

Alcohol kills—we all know it. But who cares? The real question is the desired pace of death: do you want it fast or slow, hard or soft? In Leaving Las Vegas, Ben Sanderson, portrayed by Nicolas Cage, chooses to drink himself to death at a breakneck speed. While some view this as tragic, we at Groktails™ see it differently. We salute his resolve—courage, perhaps, though it could just as easily be cowardice. Or maybe it’s neither. In this post, The Bliss of Suffering: Ben’s Beautiful Death by Alcohol, we propose that suffering is actually the destination—a state of bliss that we embrace as a living proxy for death. Until death finally puts us out of our misery.

Leaving Las Vegas and Ben Sanderson’s Bliss

Alcohol’s a slinky vixen—slow poison or lightning bolt, your choice. We all pretend to care about its impact, nodding at the stats: trashed livers, shattered families, or just the casual escapism masquerading as “taking the edge off after a long day” every night, that it becomes a thing. But let’s cut the bullshit—it’s not about if it kills you, it’s about how fast you want the curtain to drop. In Leaving Las Vegas, Ben Sanderson doesn’t pussyfoot around with the question. He grabs it by the throat and floors it into oblivion. Nicolas Cage plays him like a man possessed—raw, unhinged, liquidating his life, torching his past, and rolling into Sin City with a death wish and a bottle. It’s easy to slap a “tragic” label on it, call it addiction’s sad little victory lap. But at Groktails™, we don’t peddle in tears (except as a mocktail ingredient). We see something else in Ben: suffering as pure bliss. And Ben’s not just any old drunk—he’s a prophet of the abyss.

Here’s the kicker, brother and sister: alcohol’s a problem because of the hangover, the regret, the slow rot. But what if you say fuck it and never stop? Ben’s not chasing a buzz—he’s sprinting toward the void, glass in hand, no brakes. No hangover if you don’t sober up. No pain if you don’t let life creep back in. Alcohol can be nirvana and in Ben’s case it is—total blackout, no return ticket. You sidestep the misery of waking up to face yourself. Is that cowardice? Hiding from the grind, dodging the pain with the same conviction David Goggins has for confronting it? Maybe. Or maybe it’s courage—staring down the grim reaper and saying, “My terms, asshole.” But it doesn’t really matter. Courage, cowardice, whatever—Ben’s not here to champion our prosaic moralizing. Instead he shows us that suffering isn’t the enemy. It’s the whole enchilada.

Unfortunately we’re wired to hate suffering—evolution, society, biology screaming at us to bandage the hurt, chase the high, plaster over the cracks. Suffering’s the boogeyman, the thing we medicate, meditate, or masturbate away. But what if we’ve got it ass-backwards? What if suffering’s the lifeblood of being alive, the one thing we can’t outrun, and the only thing worth embracing? Ben doesn’t flinch. His Vegas stint isn’t a countdown—it’s a love letter to misery, a twisted rapture. He’s not numbing shit so much as he’s living in his own filth, bathing in the burn, suckling at the fountain of agony like it’s mom’s teat. Strip life to its bones, and what’s left? Suffering as primal bliss.

Ponder it for a sec. It’s in the pounding head, the “why am I here” mornings, the regrets that stick like tar and feathers. Ben leans into it that, and perhaps surmounts it. And alas he finds love and redemption. He meets Sera—sex worker, soul mirror—but they don’t fix each other. Their bond’s forged in the furnace of mutual brokenness, with a quiet acknowledgement: “I see your mess, you see mine, and that’s good enough—I love you, let’s fuck.” No savior complex, no Hollywood ending—just two lost souls dancing in the wreckage. It’s not about getting out. It’s about staying in, going down with the ship, no exit, no hope, just the strange peace of submitting to the pain. That’s the bliss—raw, ugly, real.

Raise a Glass for the Broken-Hearted

At Groktails™, we don’t care to preach sobriety nor glorify self-destruction. We’re simply mixing drinks and tossing bottles back. But what if suffering’s not the tragedy we’ve been sold? What if it’s the cost of breathing, the choice to feel something that cuts deeper than happy-hour buzz? Ben didn’t fizzle out in a sterile hospital bed, doped up and drooling. He went out partying, fast, drowning in his own sea of sorrow. Bliss? Hell? Both maybe and that’s the beauty of it.

But here’s the rub, Shakespeare—if we all embrace suffering full-tilt, what’s left? Doesn’t society collapses when we all stop running from the dark? No boogeyman, no fight, no grand aspirations to outpace death. Society’s a scaffold designed to stand against demise. Ben’s all-in bet on suffering works because it’s rare—most of us are too chickenshit to try it. Maybe that’s why he’s a legend though, and not a blueprint.

So raise a glass to Ben Sanderson from Leaving Las Vegas, to the loud sufferers, the poison-pickers, the pace-setters, the alcohol fiends, the broken-hearted. Death’s coming—fast or slow, your call. Until then, there’s a dark dignity in grabbing the hurt by the horns, finding the bliss in the bleed. Cheers to that, you glorious bastards. Last call on deck. Drink up.

Stay Thirsty.