Xune

Years, many years ago, I used to feel sorry for 'alcoholics' who were in recovery and couldn't have a cold beer on a hot summer day.

This was a persistent feeling that I carried around for most, if not all of my drinking life. Never mind the fact that since I was a teenager, abusing alcohol and binge drinking was how I consumed alcohol. That one single beer was a bit of a mirage in how alcohol actually interacted with my life, but the feeling was always there.

The mental note of enjoying a beer was strong, but one that I didn't actually experience on any kind of a regular basis. Of course, I now can see that with the benefit of hindsight.

Then for a number of years, although I never did like to have just one beer, the thought remained and I would still feel sorry for those in recovery. That they had ruined their ability to enjoy a single cold beer, seemed to me at the time, to be quite tragic.

Well, here I am now, having nearly destroyed my life because of alcohol and I find that I am now that 'alcoholic' who is in recovery.

I can no longer have a single ice cold beer at the end of a hot summer day.

The truth of the matter is that for the longest time, I never did enjoy that single beer, as like most of us, I was always eyeing for another. In fact, if I wasn't offered a second beer, I would sulk and speak poorly of the host at every opportunity.

The truth is that I am painfully aware that the feeling I carried around for years was based solely on an illusion. It was a complete and utter fabrication.

Here I am, February 2013 and for some time now, I live the life that I used to find so tragic and so sad. Yet I don't even feel the slightest tinge of sadness or longing for a cold one.

No, instead it is liberation that I feel. It isn't a tragedy that I can no longer have that single beer, it is freedom to me.

I see it for what it is, an oasis of pure fiction.

For that, I am grateful.

Peace.

hypochondriac

I always thought that alcoholics in recovery had admitted defeat, that they were denying themselves. I had no idea that being sober would be a better way for me to live and that I'd be happier this way. Took being sober to convince me

ReadyAndAble

Awesome post. So true to my experience. For years the fantasy of relaxing with that single beer or a wine trumped the reality, which was just a pathetic cycle of obsession and regret.

You have me thinking, Xune: I wonder if people feel sorry for me when I say I don't drink. It would be ironic, because when I'm at a bar or restaurant with friends, I'm even more keenly aware of how lucky I am to be free of the bottle.

EnderWiggin

i don't always see eye to eye with you, but this post stands out as one of the best i've seen. becoming what you pity. such an acute observation that is perhaps too obvious to see for many of us.

scat143

like the corona commercials sitting with the one corona on a beach ahhhh.....never will be me.

kizzy40

I was different, as a teen I enjoyed the company of the non drinkers much more and pitied the drinkers slurring and staggering, invading my personal space and acting inappropriately.
Then I became one of them....
Thank goodness I finally woke up... Funniest thing is I don't see it as the social tabboo it is portrayed to be, being sober at social functions is fine. Thought it would take months or years for me to feel comfortable around it, but no.

FreeFall

Scat, I immediately thought of the Corona commercial too. We are being brainwashed lol I don't even like beer and that commercial makes me wistful-excellent marketing on their part.

Xune, great post! I think our perceptions as drinkers are often really far off.
We see a deprived person because they can't drink, when the reality is we're deprived of so much of life when we do drink.

I feel sorry for people that are a slave to drinking now. I really don't want to go back there ever again.

I heard people laughing over the night one of them had because she got hammered the other night. She was making jokes about it. I remember doing that too-making jokes myself so I could beat people to it but feeling miserable inside. No thanks.

Fallow

Great post. Id sulk and speak poorly of the host too if I only got offered 1 beer. 99 percent of the time I was the host!

27cougar

So well written. Exactly. Thank yoU!

instant

Great post.

SomethingBetter

Couldnt have said it better! Dead on!

Nonsensical

Xune, just wanted to say "Thanks" again for this post. I read it shortly before going out to dinner with my wife's boss and his wife. When cocktails were offered before dinner I had a little twinge of sadness that I couldn't order one - because I wanted one, but I knew it would never be just one. I recalled this post and it took some of the sting out of declining.

jennikate

So true! I think in today's society it's easy to romanticize alcohol. Sitting on a beach, at a romantic dinner, out with friends...all a mirage for me. In my last years of drinking, none of those scenarios happened. More like sitting alone in my bedroom waiting to pass out. I'll take sobriety any day. I am free.