7:31 pm
I went to a day-long “party” yesterday–started with a late lunch and ended with a dip in the hot tub, a home-cooked pasta dinner, a night swim in the pool, and watching the MTV music awards. All kinds of people were there: normal drinkers, non-drinkers, and drunks (at least for the night). And, after all this time, I’m starting to both know and respect my limits–and surprisingly enough, others’!
It was so ordinary for me to not drink that I didn’t feel any of the usual weirdness. I wasn’t drinking–normal. I wasn’t engaging in loud chitchat–these people have never seen me do that. I wasn’t stumbling around, being overly emotional or obtuse or offensive–not even in the realm of possibility when I’m my sober (contained) self. I also wasn’t thinking, Oh, I wonder if everyone thinks I’m as lame as I feel?…because I wasn’t feeling lame. I was feeling calm, proud, self-possessed. I was feeling perfectly fine being sober, as if, being sober was just one of the infinite variations on being. Being sober simply doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t separate me from others. It doesn’t distinguish me as something else. You’re drinking, I’m not. Carry on.
Am I glad I wasn’t babbling on and embarrassing myself through an acidic, blurry haze? YES. Am I glad I was able to get up at 11:30 and say, Welp, it’s time for me to go, I’ve got ‘Breaking Bad’ to watch at midnight? Fuck yeah. Am I glad to not be hung over? Uh, that NEVER gets old!
What’s different, I guess, is that I really wasn’t paying all that much attention to what and how much everyone else was drinking. Most people, I’ve realized, don’t even GET the concept of sobriety, let alone have it in themselves to judge anyone for being sober–especially in a setting where they’re getting their fix. I think most people are just too busy having a lot of fun, having a little fun, or not having fun to worry about what anyone else is doing at a party.
Sure, I noticed there was champagne, but I felt too bloated to really care. I might have said no anyway had I not been sober (I have a short fuse on champagne). I was actually really thirsty toward the end of the night, and as I was drinking my bottled water, I did notice one person cracking open beer after beer; and what I thought foremost was, Wow, that looks SO like the opposite of what I want right now (which was water), not, Wow, she’s drinking a lot and really fast, maybe I should waste two brain cells contemplating HER choices?.
One thing I do when I start to feel “thoughtful” about my not drinking (like, wondering what others are thinking of me, if they’re thinking anything) is I relax. I literally make my body go slack, take a deep inner breath, and try to project this feeling of inner calm to the outside. I KNOW from experience that when most people are drinking, they’re not thinking AT ALL about those sober folks in the room. And, if there is a split-second thought of, Oh, what a wet blanket, it fades in the next instant and is replaced by the all-consuming, Where’s the wine (or beer, or vodka, or weed, or whatever)? Projecting a sense of calm to those who have been reduced to lower-brained mammals seems to me the best way to say, I am doing fine, thanks, and get them to back down and think it was their idea. 😉
While I didn’t necessarily want to drink, I had one familiar moment of, Aww, this is SO not going to be fun/Aww, this would be SO much more fun and I’d feel SO much more a part of it if I was drinking. It was fleeting, a minor blip. What a relief, after over 14 months from my initial sober date, to finally be at a point where it feels practically normal–and good–to be sober in social settings? Let me be the first (not) to tell you: it gets better. It does, it does, it does. Your mind recovers, literally. You BECOME sober, which means that it doesn’t happen overnight. But happen, it DOES. I mean, I NEVER would have thought I could socialize sober and enjoy it– and here I am, beginning to do so.
What am I trying to say? I guess that both drinking and not drinking has become almost a non-issue these days. Within a matter of weeks, actually, that table has turned. There is a point–at least for some people, including myself, who maybe USED wine but wasn’t ultimately DEPENDENT on it–where the cravings and obsession and thoughts of drinking die down enough to be replaced by thoughts of what to do with your career, and what to do in your relationship, and everything else that’s important. I don’t want to say that I’ll be drinking again–most likely, no. However, nothing in life is black and white–a personal mantra that gets stronger and stronger with every single passing day of sobriety.
(Maybe my “dip”-turned-month-long depression finally lifted? Like someone smart once said, and I’ll say it again, Carry the fuck on!)
