Vacations... now that I think back on those vacations I took while still "out there," I always had a plan for drinking.
I can remember one of our first "family vacations" after moving to Arizona.... we went to Carlsbad, CA (still one of my favorite spots in the world) to the Carlsbad Inn. I always had my Budweiser with me... then a few summers ago we did a cheapy vacation (the resorts in Phoenix are dirt cheap in the summer -- you just put up with the heat, and live by the pool)... I was sneaking beers down to the pool and was basically blitzed all day...
the best vacations have truly been the ones I spent sober... even last year when we went to Disneyland with some other families. We stayed at the Embassy Suites... free happy hour. I watched everyone else get drunk or just stayed upstairs with the kids while the adults 'socialized.' I went down toward the end of the Happy Hours when everyone was stupidly slurring... realizing that had I been still drinking I would have been the most incoherent of all. Thank you God, that life doesn't have to be that way....
Happy Sober New Year everyone!
NMB