No Borboun, No Scotch, No Beer

Seven years today, I drank a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Grand Dame (a bottle of champagne given to me by Ru.pert Murd.och…long story) and never drank again. That was Day One. I still can’t believe it has been seven years since I drank way more than I should. I have to admit there are times when I miss it. Or, more specifically, I miss certain aspects of it. Squinting through hangovers and trying to piece together fuzzy nights and checking my Recent Calls on the cell to see who I spoke with: I don’t miss those parts. But I miss the social-ness of drinking; the (temporary and artificial) relief it brought me at the end of the bad day. Or, more truthfully, at the end of every day. When I get together with friends and they casually order a glass of wine (which the may or may not finish) I envy them. I wish I could take or leave liquor; get a drink and not feel the need for another and another and another and hey let’s go to another bar the night is still young. I wish that I never let it get the better of me and I wish I still had control.

But I don’t, and I am grateful that I got to the point in my life when I realized my consumption wasn’t normal and I am glad that I was able to stop, after many fits and starts. I couldn’t have done it without the unconditional support that I got from Nicole. What a difference it makes to try to stop when your partner supports that fully. She stuck with me as I fidgeted through the newly long nights, which didn’t include the requisite nightly bar visit. She held my hand as I walked past dark havens and old haunts, with their siren call of yeasty beer smells and sticky floors and super-friendly bartenders. She was a pillar of strength as I fumbled through those precarious early days, and is a daily reminder just by her presence of all that I got for giving up drinking. Because if I still drank, I can guaratee that I wouldn’t be with her, we wouldn’t have children, and I wouldn’t be where I am today. My drinking path was destructive and isolating and not conducive to healthy relationships, let alone parenthood. Now, each year to mark this occassion, she writes me the most beautiful cards, telling me how proud she is (usually accompanied by a gift!) because this is, in sober land, truly a day to celebrate.

People don’t believe me sometimes when I tell them how bad it was. But it was bad. Blackouts and spoken regrets and drunk-dialing and reckless nights dancing on bars are the tip of the liquor iceberg. There was the time when I literally almost died. I was drunk and walking home to my boat when I slipped off the undulating dock and fell like a stone into the cold, choppy Hudson River. I was wearing clogs that slipped off my feet and sank and a dress, which billowed up around me, making my struggle that much harder. I struggled to find the surface for the water. I finally came up, but I was underneath the dock, still under water and panicking and choking. I struggled like a caged animal, trying to find air and trying to find the edge of the dock to pull myself up. My ex fished me out, using that supernatural strength that one is only capable of in dire, life-or-could-be-death situations. It was eye-opening and terrifying, but did I quit the drink then and there? Nope. That was not enough of a wake-up call.

Fourteen rounds. I remember nights at bars drinking 14 rounds of beer. I could drink many people under the table. I used to be proud of that; about how much I could drink.

It was so difficult in the beginning, but it is not terribly trying now at all. There are days or moments when I say to Nicole “I really, really wish I could drink now” but they are usually a gut response to a bad day or some emotional upheaval. There are those hot summer nights when I would kill for a wheat beer with a sliver of lemon and those cold nights when I want a glass of throat-warming scotch, but, in general, my desire to drink coincides with a desire to make a bad situation better or a boring evening more enjoyable. Sometimes when Nicole and I go away, especially to new places, we will be walking and pass a bar and one of us will say “If we were still drinking, we would be there right now.” And we would have.

The question I get asked most: Do I mind if others drink around me? No, I don’t mind at all if you drink. It doesn't tempt me or make me feel weak or compromise my sobriety. I have a couple of friends who will still ask, when we go out to dinner, if I mind if they drink. I think that is very sweet, but, as I tell them, I don't mind at all.

For me, quitting was a life-saving decision and one I am so grateful to have made.

Pictured above, me, the subtle drunk. Notice the almost-empty glass of scotch on my hand. I couldn’t even take my had off that glass to take a picture. And, apparently I couldn’t blink in time with the shutter. Also pictured, another drunk-in-the-day shot. This time, on my boat, sitting on my smoking perch. Notice the empties over my shoulder. And the vinyl pants.