[ I haven't posted in a long time, I hope you enjoy this one ]
Recently I’ve been going through a personal trial. Its not one of those life altering I’ll never be the same again trials (although I’m not ruling it out), but one that I’ve been through many times in my life. It’s always preceded by a pattern, which goes like this…
Week 1: Go to the bar on Friday, drink, wakeup with hang over, don’t drink the rest of the week.
Week 2: Go to the bar on Friday, drink, wakeup with hang over, drink a little on saturday to fix hangover, sober up Sunday, think about drinking next Friday.
Week 3: Go to the bar on Friday, wake up in the bar on Sunday morning, have a bloody mary and pass the time until next Friday.
Week 4: Well, if you can’t see the pattern developing, go do something simpler, like tweeting yourself.
Next thing I know, I’m drinking steadily all week long, perhaps not getting wasted, but definitely putting on the buzz on a regular basis, with the crescendo being the Friday night bash, but never really coming to resolution. All the sober/buzz/drunk back and forth starts to put stress on my brain, my responsibilities and my health. I start to freak out a bit, and I stop drinking. Just like that. Its not some mission from god for me to quit drinking, it just happens. I start drinking cranberry and sodas (the best drinking simulator I’ve found, and its good for your kidneys) at the bar while everyone else gets drunk, and I become the built in DD. Its quite convenient for me and my friends…
But that’s where the trouble all starts… my friends. It’s like a social sin to be at a bar, and not be drinking, even if you’re the one with the car keys. Sometimes the amount of shit I get from my friends about not drinking is worse than the hangover. The simple repetitive nature of the concept makes me want to drink, and eventually I give in…
Insert progressive drinking pattern here.
My worst friend (in this regard) is one of my closest friends, who went on a three month dryout himself, and knows the importance of the mission at hand, yet he still harranges the shit out of me because I won’t drink with him.
The problem is, I have clean-and-sober type friends, and the rational conclusion is to start hanging out with them and stop hanging out with the drinking crowd… But the truth is, while my clean-and-sober friends are good intellectual/spiritual motivators with their heads screwed on straight, when it comes to a Friday night, at the end of a long work week, they burn on me like a sparkler, when what I really need is a 20 pound mortar.
So you see, drinking isn’t my problem…
Posted by Jocko 