I had the oddest realization over the weekend. As I mentioned, my weekend sucked. It was a big holiday weekend here in Canada — Canada’s 150th birthday — and I missed all of it because I was chained to my computer working. (I’m still not over it, clearly.)
Anyway, because I was sitting so much I was also drinking a ton of non-alcoholic bevvies. Drinking, drinking drinking… holy hell how much can I actually drink? Only if you don’t drink alcohol, you don’t get drunk.
Surprise!
I know. Obviously. But I’m so accustomed to the anxiety of pouring a drink at night, that the anxiety is still there. This drinking without stress is going to take some getting used to.
I’ve never been a black-out drunk. But I have been a daily drinker, and quite conscious that if I had more than two pints of beer a night I was going to be good for nothing the next day. Seriously, I never did learn how to hold my liquor. But the anxiety of wanting more than two pints was constant. The first one disappeared so fast. The second one a little slower but I’d feel tense so I’d enjoy it less.
Sometimes we’d have wine with dinner too, but I’d have my glass and watch my partner finish off the bottle and feel really pissed off because there wouldn’t be any left for me just in case I wanted it.
And this, I have figured out, is the hallmark of an unhealthy relationship with alcohol: your pre-occupation with it. No matter how much you drink, if its a big deal in your head, if you obsess about it and think about it and count your drinks and want more drinks, you’re probably somewhere more or less along the road to fucked.
I know this weird anxiety I feel about pouring an drink, even though it is non-alcoholic, will pass. In the meantime, it’s teaching me a thing or two about the psychological weight I’ve been carrying around these past years.
And unless you’re pounding back sugary bevvies in lieu of alcohol, it’s actually okay to be a drinkaholic! Really! How cool is that?
It just makes me pee a lot is all.
Tripping on Sober 