On and Off: The Wagon
So. I spent August engaged in something of a personal challenge (well, personal to me and my friend KQ). This pursuit was something of a social experiment, something of a personal health thing, something of a just-to-make-sure-I'm-not-a-complete-lush thing. That's right, my friends. I didn't drink a drop of Pappy's Cough Syrup during the month of August. Alcohol-free. Dry as a bone. Chuck-E-Cheese, 24-7. It was easier and harder than I thought it would be. Easier because it turns out I'm not a raging alcoholic and I didn't, in fact, really go through withdrawal. Harder because I really really like drinking beer while I watch t.v. Next time, I'm making a loophole.
What did I learn? Let's list it all in list form. Some of it is surprising and some of it is emphatically not.
1. Alcohol makes you drunker than you are when you're sober.
2. Being drunk makes you do ill-advised things.
3. Being sober makes you do fewer ill-advised things.
4. Ergo, life is simpler when you don't drink. BUT
5. People are funnier when they are drunk.
6. Therefore, you are funnier when you are drunk.
7. Ergo, you are less of a hit at parties when you are sober. UNLESS
8. There is four-square. In which case, you can be just as much of a hit sober as you would be otherwise. NOTE
9. You will still like all of your friends when the Month O' Sobriety ends. FURTHERMORE
10. All of your friends will like you back. LASTLY
11. You sleep better when you don't drink. I feel like a million bucks!
Not drinking's OK. Q.E.D.
Now. I intend to fall headfirst off the wagon. As such, there will be boatraces and parties and bar hopping and other things of that ilk that make my mama proud (hi Mom!). Who wants to go to happy hour?
posted by Amy @ 5:44 PM
5 Comments:
I agree on several points, although it does turn out that sometimes friends really want you to drink with them regardless of what you say about not drinking at the beginning of the evening. You have to make things REALLY official (like capitalizing My Month of Sobriety) in order to convey the dead seriousness of your commitment.
I have learned that if ever a friend says to me "I am going without alcohol" for any amount of time (even just a night), the first words out of my mouth should be words of affirmation. Congratulate your friend and ask what you can do to help. It seems like it should go without saying, but we tend to want everyone around us to drink when we drink, and I think it's a gut reaction to be like "Aaaaw- why are you not drinking? Can't you just have one drink?"
Also, having been drunkish approximately one time since said falling off of the wagon, I have to confess that I find myself rather intolerable under the influence. I already have a fairly obnoxious personality, and I think it's just too much when amplified by alcohol. Not so much "funnier" as "grating." If you know what I mean.
Isn't there a middle ground? Can't one drink without getting "drunk"? One good beer does not always deserve another. My proposal is to treat alcoholic beverages like nourishment, not drugs. It would help to appreciate fermented beverages and avoid fortified or distilled ones. Or maybe the effects are too tempting -- in which case, teetotal away.
I just like to say I love the Q.E.D. I learned that term for MATH.
Hello Mr. and Mrs. Salley!
Amy, you are fun without alcohol! BUTTT....you don't laugh at me quite as much. So I've got mixed feelings.
I, on the other hand, am unbearable either way.
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