Cathedral, the drinks and the dope

When I learned that the author Raymond Carver had problem with alcoholism, I reflected some more of the use of whiskey and smoking dope or cannabis in the story "Cathedral". The narrator drinks pretty much before he and the blind man, Robert starts to smoke some dope. So when he and the blind was able to comunicate closely with each other, he normally must have been pretty drunk? And when they were going to listen to a tape from the blind man he got drinks for it. The first drink was at the kitchen table when he should listen to his wife about the blind man. This was after she asked him if he was drunk. When the wife went to pick up the blind man he was having a drink watching the TV. When he had welcomed the blind he made three, big glasses of Scotch with a splash of water in each. When they have talked about the trip they had another drink. When they sat down for dinner, they had another drink. After dinner they had them two or three more drinks, and I guess that`s not that clear anylonger. Then before they starts to smoke dope there was a question for another drink which was brought along with the dope. There is also some referings to the drinks and empty glasses. So there is much about drinks and dope in a relativly short story which is mostly about a blind man and the meeting with him. I didn`t think much about this aspect of the story when I red it the first time. Here he meets a stranger, a good friend of his wife, he gets boozed and it`s made like it`s normal?