Living Out Loud Project winner. (v13). Drinkin’ Buddies.

The Living Out Loud project is designed to bring writers out of their box by writing about things that are either new, personal, uncomfortable ~ or all of the above. This month’s topic, way out of my comfort zone, is about my relationship with alcohol. The Living Out Loud project is a monthly writing exercise open to all writers with a willingness and desire to Live Out Loud.

While not quite the same volatile intensity as my past relationship with food, beer and wine and a little Crown Royal have been my teddy bear, my blankie, my pseudo-strength and my downfall at one time or another. I was pretty innocent and sheltered, and except for one can of beer down Party Road before school my senior year, I really wasn’t much of a drinking kid. So I have very few experiences to share.

I really don’t recall the first time I drank. It could have been with four friends on New Years’ Eve 1980, or it may have been the night of my first real “car date” several months later. The guy I was with brought out a bottle of sloe gin, drank enough to make himself sick, looked over at me and said, “I’ve gotta retch” and proceeded to puke his guts out the car door. I was so naive and so self-conscious that I went to school and told my best friend he’d called me names (as in, wretch) and gotten drunk because he didn’t enjoy the date.

I vaguely remember getting drunk at a party and spending the night at my best friend’s house so she could drive me home the next morning (though she can remember that better than me, of course) and I recall quite clearly my first encounter with grain alcohol in the form of Purple Passion the year after graduation: watching the world spin, getting sick, the hangover and headache that lasted for two days.

I’d like to say that never happened again but I’d be lying. During my 30s, the pace picked up a bit. Ironically it centered around my time as a personal trainer in our local gym. We had lots of parties and Margarita Wednesday and because I was in a funky relationship at the time, the gym people became my escape and my extended family. But my tolerance level is low: I’m short and small and there just isn’t much space for a glass or two of wine or a shot or two of liquor. So there isn’t much wiggle room between a few giggles and doing the stupid things. Yes, I’ve drunk and dialed, but that’s harmless enough if you can get past your own embarrasment and humiliation.

What I’m talking about are the judgment calls that have as their basis no judgment. For instance, driving home late at night, plastered on wine, with one hand on the wheel and one over an eye so you can see the road. I almost wiped out some poor guy that I recognized from the gym turning left at an intersection that way. I can’t recall which hand I used to roll down the window, wave and yell, “HEY! I know you!” Maybe funny at the time, but seriously. Seriously. I could have killed someone, if not myself. And I was an adult.

Along with a low tolerance lies the propensity within my family gene pool to turn to something other than our own good sense or innate spiritual perfection as a compass. It’s so easy to turn off the GPS of good sense after the good feeling starts to hit and it’s so easy to navigate the same course over and over and say you’ll learn the lesson next time. But that’s just plain bullshit. Fortunately I didn’t have to physically maim or murder another human being to realize that there needs to be some buffer between the booze and me. I was lucky enough to just lie to and majorly disappointed my best friend about something I’d done when tipsy.

The act itself was silly and innocent enough ~ sending an email to someone I’d professed to put behind me, waking up the next morning knowing that was a stupid thing to do, and throwing on the veil of denial that it ever happened. But while I wore the veil to hide from myself, I was also letting her think I’d passed a milestone, and we had numerous conversations over the next two weeks that, as she rightly pointed out, were based on circumstances that didn’t exist and were a waste of her time, energy, direction and friendship. I merely didn’t want to deal with myself in the mirror but honestly, that’s a pathetic excuse. Bottom line is, my relationships, whether they are with myself or another person, deserve nothing less than to be based on and balanced upon respect and trust and what’s real. If I can’t give that after all the work I like to think I’ve done, well then, I’m an idiot and I’m here to say it out loud.

She was honest and brutal and it was a kick in the gut I deserved and needed and it hit, square on, the target. Bulls eye. I never, ever again want to hear someone I love tell me that I hurt them because I chose to. What I choose is to pretty much consistently keep in touch with me, stay on solid ground, be in at least sober, if not intellectual, control, of my own choices. So while I do like a good glass of wine or a cocktail, I won’t be the life of the party or the one in the corner texting uncontrollably. Nope, I’ll be standing right there, glass in hand, cutting off the refills. I count because I’m accountable to me. And you’ll know right where I stand.