Drinking

N.B.: The picture above? That never happens. At least never for Me.

As W.C. Fields once put it, “I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.”

OK, well, those days are behind Me. Unless you count mustard, most of which is made with wine. Or red/white wine vinegar. Still, not things you’re going to use to get drunk. I guess some people might though.

I have an incurable liver disease where the fourth and final stage is coma and death. The thought crosses My mind from time to time, “Why not drink? I’m going to die no matter what, might as well.”

There are a number of reasons that I choose to remain sober, and I’d like to tell you what those reasons are. Honestly, it helps to say them so that I don’t forget what they are.

1. I might die slower if I don’t drink. Of course, there’s the consideration that all I’m doing is prolonging the suffering and putting off the inevitable, but I like to think that the time I’ll gain will be worth the abstinence.
2. When I stopped drinking, it was like My paycheck got a massive boost. Hey, when all of a sudden you have an extra $300 — $400 (or more) a month of disposable income, that’s nice when that accounts for almost 1/3 of your income. Yeah, I’m poor, and drinking didn’t help Me have a lot of nice things.
3. I like Myself better as a sober person. Barely, though, if I’m going to be honest. Alcohol has always functioned as a social lubricant for Me, as they say, and now without it I’m not entirely sure what to do in social situations.
4. I think more clearly. Again, though, barely. The symptoms of hepatic encephalopathy include confusion, tiredness, and trouble doing basic math. When that happened in the past, I always had the alcohol to blame it on. It still happens from time to time even now and as I’m no longer drinking, that’s no longer something that I can blame it on.
5. An obnoxious prick of a doctor didn’t think I could do it. I told other doctors what My idea was for a good recovery plan and they may have had reservations but they said maybe it would work. One doctor, though, who really struck Me as an obnoxious prick (note that in My book that’s a good thing) said flat out that no, it was terrible, he didn’t think I could swing it without going into therapy or AA or some sort of rehab. My first though was “Do you know who I am?” Then I realized that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had spent over the past two decades as a drunken failure: Losing jobs, relationships, and brain cells in the process. So thank you, doctor, for metaphorically slapping Me upside the head and helping Me realize that drunken sot Me is not the real Me. I want to be the real Me.

And so, day after day, week after week, I continue being the real Me instead of the drunken Me. Drunken Me did his part to kill the real Me but real Me is tired as hell and he’s not gonna take it any more!