Before we get started, here’s a tune from the juiced-box:
Nora Jones covering Willie Nelson’s “I Gotta Get Drunk”:
[Press 'Play' to feel the buzz]
Just Typical
As all y’all have been following my Twitter page religiously, you’ve noticed that last Friday’s binge (here’s the blog i posted while buzzing so loud i couldn’t hear myself drink) threw me into a depression hangover tail spin that i’m only now just recovering from. Rather turning into the skid mark, as recommended by 3 out of 4 Drinkers Education Teachers, i’ve decided to hop onto the wagon for a limited bad trip. The goal i’ve set myself is to stay dry until the day after Christmas. Don’t worry, i’ll be boring you to beers with regular updates on my progress/regression (depends what end of the bottle you’re on).
It’s not easy, as anyone who’s tried can tell you. One of the tough things about not imbibing are the constant reminders i come across in a typical day. It’s kinda like the dumped guy who walks around seeing the face of the girl who broke his heart in everything he sees.
Here’s what i mean…
What i See In The Newspaper
How To Snort Wine
Billboards
On The Street
When One Hour Isn't Enough
A Reminder Of One i Coulda Had
Reminders Of Ones i Coulda Had
Yeawomen
[For a definition of 'Yeawomen' check out AlKHall-hics: A Glossary]
It's A Well Known Fact Yeawomen Have Nice Butts (i think even Wiki says so)
Yeawomen Are Sexy When They Drink Alone
On Top Of It All Off…
…tonight there was a retirement party for a guy at work and the champagne was all-you-can-drink. i had an orange juice. That i picked the wrong week to go for a couple stops on the wagon is kinda the point of this post. Any and every week is the wrong week.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:46 am
It’s true, it is everywhere. Your post is really eye-opening as to how many ads and other reminders there are everywhere for booze.
I’m totally empathetic. Yeah-Man has a national obsession for not only wine and other forms of booze, but bread (over 1200 bakeries in just over 33 square miles in its capital city! Yeah, that is more than 36 bakeries PER SQUARE MILE), cheese, and french fries: all things I cannot eat or I am sick. Fuck, I discovered yesterday that likely a piece of pig knots me up with arthritis-like symptoms so badly I can barely move. So I do get this, very much so.
Stuff like this sucks ass, babe. It really fucking does.
Yeah, I don’t know in the economy of exchange how much the suffering off is outweighed by the suffering on. I have been living with this every day, too. And then I do dumb ass stuff like read blogs about the miracles of the food here, pretty much making myself suffer more. At least you are not going through this in a place, like, say, IRELAND, a country noted for its boozing. I’m living in the culinary capital of the freakin’ entire PLANET. Yo. That’s pretty bad.
Thing is, you don’t *need* alcohol for the body to survive. Food on the other hand? I don’t want to play a game of “my situation is worse than yours” and so on, but I guess it is just to say I deeply understand the whole “can’t live with it, can’t live without it” dynamic. I really do.
I can also say that while doing this kind of thing is very socially-limiting, and it sucks to not be one of the crowd doing it anymore, it is *not* impossible to do. You may be the one drinking orange juice and not being social with your peers that way, but then the upside of it is that your alter you become when you drink is not going to come home and argue with me, nor make you feel like shit for the next several days. It maybe was not as much fun with the peers, but on the other hand, it was a lot more fun to be with me and with yourself (I just mean psychologically, perv). Remind me to thank you later, though *wink, wink*.
One piece of advice, though. When you do go back to drinking (it seems you always do), just be careful as your tolerance will change. You will be less tolerant (as you probably already know). Each time you stop and then go back to binging, it takes a toll on the enzyme producers in the liver. One of these times, your liver may just say “fuck it” and give up. You’ll then either have to give alcohol up 100% for the rest of your life, or you will, worst case, die. I’d like to have you around a few more years, jesus, enough time for us to get hitched and for me to learn Yemeni, eh? After everything that has brought me here, and everything we have been through together, I would at least like to do those two things.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Whooooaaaaa, I blogged in your blog. LOL. One of these days I will have to just put up a post here, eh?
December 10th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Oh and hell — Yeah-man is full of SMOKERS, too, and it sucks to be a non-smoker here now, too.
It’s a cool place and all, but shit, this is all making me think we need to move, lol.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:10 am
They say that the best way to avoid a behaviour is to avoid it’s context/environment. Easier said than done when there is no place to get away from it.