Raw-dogging reality
Unlike some people who “didn’t get into drinking” until after college or later, I knew I liked it the first time I tried it. I believe that was a vodka-infused watermelon, a few weeks after I turned sixteen, at a beach in Spain where I was staying with a mostly hands-off host family. Back in high school, I suffered from debilitating shyness. I’d already given up being part of any social group or even having a single friend and spent lunchtime and free periods in my favorite library carrel next to the wall. Alcohol gave me wings; like a Red Bull commercial I was transformed into something free and light, I was suddenly able to soar away from the scared mute loner I thought I was stuck with for the rest of my life, and become that laughing teenager I’d imagined these years would be about.
I went through different periods in my relationship with alcohol, some dark and probably destructive but mostly cozy and healthy enough. I got into natural wine, loved exploring weird flavors, savored thoughtful pairings with food. By the time of the pandemic, I wasn’t drinking that much, though everyone has different definitions. I split a bottle of wine a few times a week with Anthony or made cocktails to celebrate Fridays. I wasn’t getting drunk the way I did in my twenties, but it was always there for me, welcoming and soothing, the easiest way to release me from myself. I try to spend most of my time attentive and engaging with the present, but who doesn’t need a little break now and then?
I was not looking forward to cutting out alcohol for pregnancy. I couldn’t imagine it, in fact. Any time I’d tried to take a break from drinking, even just for a month, I failed. Something would come up, like a party or a really good concert, and I wanted to fully enjoy it, be totally present, in a way that I felt alcohol helped me with. I researched the topic extensively, and decided I wouldn’t have to stop drinking completely. I thought I would drink a little on weekends, since science has largely deemed it okay, but I didn’t count on how much America’s anti-drinking messaging would weigh on me, or my mother’s reminder that she didn’t drink at all when she was pregnant with me and my brother. The few times I had a drink, I was wrapped up with irrational anxiety until my next ultrasound, even though no one has ever suggested that alcohol kills babies on impact. And besides all that, one drink wouldn’t be enough for me. It never was. So I would abstain, for the intolerable period that was the better part of a year.
Like many intolerable things, days and weeks passed into months, and now I’m almost halfway through. I’ve thrown parties and went to a 100 Gecs show stone-sober. Sometimes time can drag a bit; on weekend trips with friends it’s become apparent that my crowd puts in a solid eight hours of drinking on vacation, which feels just as long as it is without the time-collapsing quality of alcohol. After a day of cooking for people to come over, I miss that feeling of well-earned relief as I sip my first drink. I miss the way wine can turn a simple dinner with Anthony into a celebration. I miss the expansive, limitless feeling of being really quite drunk and dancing to live music or buzzing around a party full of everyone I know.
A relationship with alcohol is like a relationship with a person. It’s understandable to miss someone you’ve known for nearly two decades and who’s been there for you through breakups and falling in love and just about every holiday and celebration. I’m lucky that she’s never grown to become the focus of my life. I’m hoping that when I pick up drinking again, sometime after childbirth, or when I’m not breastfeeding all the time, that our relationship will have changed. I’ve discovered that I can hold up my end of a conversation and actually focus better on what the other person is saying when I’m sober. I can stay up late and laugh at stupid things. I can dance. I can stand reality without a break. I won’t overstate the benefits of sobriety, because I still like drinking, but I can say to myself now that I don’t need it. I’ve spent the last eighteen years growing my own wings, and I know that I have everything I need.