I haven’t had a drink in nearly four months. I’ve been filling my mug with a variety of teas creamed with coconut milk, as dairy is also something I’m trying to give up. I have survived the dark winter months without much of a craving at all, but now that patio and beach season are upon me, I think it might be a bit more challenging.
Once you get into the habit of drinking, there is always a reason to drink. I still remember when I first went to college and all the freshmen gathered in the auditorium to hear what we at first groaned about but what in turn was one of the most important speeches of my life: alcoholism warnings from a recovered alcoholic, twenty-two years sober and funny as fuck. He spoke for about an hour and told us many stories, many of which I still remember today. But two things he said to us really struck me.
First: “How many of you have ever had a drinking problem?” To which the audience of 400 eighteen-year-olds kept their hands happily in their laps. “OK. How many of you have ever prayed to a porcelain God, gotten into a fight, had a horrible hangover, or passed out after drinking?”
A handful of somewhat guilty hands shot into the air.
“And you don’t think those things are a problem?”
I will never forget that line. The term drinking problem becomes so synonymous with serious alcoholics, with homeless men and abusive fathers and people screaming in parks on the middle of a Saturday afternoon. But isn’t every problem one has related to the consumption of alcohol a drinking problem?
Second: He gave us a handout that listed virtually every reason you could think of to drink. Celebrations like holidays, birthdays, promotions, new jobs, children being born, marriages, etc. Sad moments like losing a job, a friend, a partner, a spouse. Bad days at work. Bad days at home. Sporting events. Parties for no reason.
“This is only a page, front and back,” he declared. “But it could be 365 pages. A reason for every damn day. There’s always a reason, an excuse, to drink. But do you really want to drink every day?”
Among my generation, drinking seems to be much more of a go-to coping choice than it was for my parents’ generation. I know virtually no one who doesn’t drink, other than a few due to religious beliefs. And most people I know drink with such regularity that they hardly go two days without it. Yet, the statistics are alarming, especially for women. I have read so many articles about the danger of drinking more than three to four drinks in a week, let alone three to four in one night (my usual amount). And just the other day I read an article on NPR saying that white women’s mortality rate has actually decreased, and one of the major factors is the increase of alcoholism among white women.
Reading about it, seeing myself surrounded by people who always have a reason to have a drink, and the way my life has become since I stopped is really what’s keeping me going right now. I have changed my daily habits. Instead of coming home after a stressful day at work and a long carpool and pouring myself a beer while I fix dinner, I now start up an exercise video. In four months, I have lost five pounds and three and a half inches off my waist. Instead of waking up before dawn with a grumbling stomach, GI issues, and sitting on the toilet for twenty minutes, I wake up fully rested, have clean bowel movements, and no stomach aches.
Instead of thinking of a reason to drink, I begin to think of reasons why I shouldn’t. Of the progress I have made thus far with my health. Of my girls who watch everything I do. Of my students who I hope don’t turn into statistics.
Of my writing, no longer spiteful and full of that angry inner voice that I only let escape with too many craft beers.
Most of all, I think of all the reasons why not drinking has made my life easier. I can go to happy hour and drive guilt-free to pick up my children after I’ve had my iced tea. I can go grocery shopping on a Saturday night. I can experience life with virtually no headaches.
I can have all the celebrations I want: holidays, birthdays, finding a tenant. I can be as sad or as angry as I was before about testing schedules or horrible days at work or Prince dying. And I can feel all of those emotions, the joy, the sorrow, with every capillary of every vein unpolluted by a mind-altering drug.
And sometimes it sucks. And I want to sit out in the sun and feel that numbness creep into my soul and watch my children grin and splash in delight.
And I want to forget what that teenager in my class said to me by drowning out his voice with a shot of tequila.
And I want to be brutally honest in all that I write and be fearless about it.
But.
The sun is so much brighter when I’m fully there to live their joy.
The harsh sounds of teenage angst will never disappear; will never make me a better or worse person; why drown them? Why not accept they are who they are, I am who I am, and we can move on from this moment?
And my writing. Perhaps it has suffered the most, or perhaps I have found a new voice. Only time will tell. And time will tell, because nothing, nothing will keep me from being the writer I have always been. Not a bottle, motherhood, teacherhood, or failure in all its forms.
And that is what this is all about. Rediscovering myself. Celebrating myself. The joys, the sorrows, the failures. All the reasons in the world to have a drink.
All the reasons in the world not to.
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