Apr 4, 2019
no.14 On Alcohol
When Friday rolls around, my office perks up around 3:30 in the afternoon for what I call “beer-cart-thirty.” After hours of telling myself I wouldn’t do it, a beer is plopped in my desk coozie and it suddenly seems like the perfect fuel into the weekend. After hanging with the colleagues, I go home to what is usually second happy hour, mixing new cocktails with my fiance. Then I might settle in to a few bottles of beer to close out. This would be considered a “night in,” of course. If we stay out, all bets are off. Beer-city and who’s counting?!
And that’s all fine and well…it’s the weekend, right? Friday and Saturday I can let loose a bit and enjoy a few drinks with friends or family. The problem is though, it’s rarely just Friday. Friday and Saturday, then a bloody on Sunday. Then wine on Wednesday. Then a happy hour Thursday. Then it’s warm and sunny out, what better than to sit in the sun with a vodka seltzer + lime. Or to get done with a run and cool off with a bud-light-lime.
So what started as a Friday night beer on my desk as I finish my week, bleeds into 5 out of 7 days of drinks during the week. Sometimes more, and rarely less.
Either Monday, or the day of a bad hangover, I consider a sobriety streak. It always sounds like a good idea, until I look at my calendar. Ooo…can’t do the next thirty days, I have a holiday, wedding, party, event to attend. Gotta drink those nights so better wait! It’s never convenient to have a sober streak, but I’m also pretty sure that’s the point.
I never do a streak. I do cut back. Is there balance between the two? Should there be?
I enjoy many things about drinking. I enjoy the social aspect of it. How it gets me out of the house, with friends, seeing music, or at a community event. It becomes an excuse to get together, do something or meet someone new. I enjoy how much variety there is. I love trying and tracking what kinds of new beers I drink. I enjoy concocting new cocktail recipes. I like sipping on local aromatics or sampling scotch. I enjoy the culture of it — the well-earned beer after a long ski, drinking High Life with my grandpa at the local bar while laughing and singing country tunes, or indulging in local drinks when traveling.
I don’t like the problems when it goes too far. The calories and weight gain or loss of appetite/skipped meals. The potential onset of alcoholism. Especially, drunk driving. And even as simple as the bad change in attitude that can ruin an evening.
Every time I want to tell myself there is a livable balance, I also react by thinking there shouldn’t be. Alcohol becomes a good-evil when I think about it too hard. I don’t want to give it up, but I feel like I should at times. Because I don’t want to give it up, I think I have a dependency on it. Because I can give it up when I need to, I feel OK about myself again. It’s like an endless give-and-take.
In the end, I always say yes to the beer-cart.
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