Drunks With A Politics Problem

Last month I finally had enough of my drunk colleagues.

Basically nothing about the situation was surprising. It was in Washington DC (of course), after hours (of course), at some bar with a ridiculous Spanglish name. But there I was. I walked in, said hello, walked right back out and told my fiancee my heart was racing and I had to leave.

I guess some of the people who are there will read this and be confused. Maybe you are too.

Let’s back up.

I’m an alcoholic, sober three years this coming February. I know: it’s a rarity in professional politics to admit that. It’s not a rarity that I’m divorced, or that I’ve worked against politicians after working for them, or that I say fuck a lot. That’s all basically fine.

But stop drinking, and there’s a loud record screech every time you go out.

“I, uh, didn’t ask if you’re OK with me drinking,” says a lobbyist on the golf course as he buys a vodka lemonade from the drink cart.

“Oh, are you OK with this?” a campaign manager asks as he starts his fifth beer.

“Oh Jesus, I didn’t know,” says a pollster as he notices I didn’t drink when we get the check.

Or just that ubiquitous condolence: “I’m sorry.”

Except once:

“Ok, got it,” said one of my best friends when I told her I’m an alcoholic.

“Thanks for not apologizing,” I said.

“No problem. Just take care of yourself so you can do my research.”

Save that one kindness it’s always a patronizing fragility, as if I’m thrown into an existential crisis at the sight of a bottle.

Listen: not drinking is really easy. Try it: do nothing at all. Congratulations, you’ve successfully not drank.

It’s getting through life sober that’s the problem.

Or is it?

A lot of lies sustain drinking in politics. Some of them are little more than a fig leaf, like the affectation among Democratic consultants that they’re wine aficionados, as if any appreciation is possible after an entire bottle.

“Yeah,” a pollster told me once. “My wine snobbery is just a cover for really disturbing alcoholism.”

He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t joking either.

But most of the lies are more basic, a fiction about our lives that ends with: I should drink.

There’s the industrious lie. I work hard, and have difficult clients, and a dozen scripts to get through, and I deserve a drink.

There’s the self pitying lie. My manager is an asshole, and half my clients aren’t paying me, and there’s nothing to do but drink.

Or there’s the self loathing lie. My tax bill is impossible, I screwed up a fact check, this cycle is hell and I don’t know why I do it. I need a drink.

Look: alcohol is simple. It suppresses neurotransmitter. Your brain increases its production to stay alive. Then you feel anxious, so you want another drink. Then it takes more alcohol to maintain equilibrium, so you drink more.

Repeat until you’re dead.

Or you can stop. It sucks. Sudden sobriety drives you up a wall with neural overload. It causes seizures and death if you’ve drank long and hard enough. It lasts a forever too long.

And then it’s over. At least, the difficulty of NOT DRINKING is.

But sobriety comes with its own quiet truth. I’m not any better than my drinking and frequently drunk colleagues. Many are fine/excellent/better than me at political consulting.

But neither are they any calmer, or less busy, or less anxious than me. There isn’t any difference at all. They just drink, and I don’t, and they tell themselves why they drink, and here I am, not drinking.

It’s a lot of work to interact like that. Not to drink, but to pretend I don’t notice other people who do. That they’re not any nicer, or funnier, or happier drinking. That there isn’t any additional quality to drinking. It’s just drinking.

Then it all happens at once. A dozen people in a crowded bar, yelling at each other, barely intelligible at best.

It took me three years and one relapse to decide drinking is just drinking. Pretending otherwise for an entire table was too much.