I have to admit, driving past that liquor store on the days I go into the office can be quite tempting. They have a fine selection of ice cold IPAs in nice big pint cans. Four packs and six packs. All lined up and waiting to be drank.
As I hugged those bears, that very hug and the rush of all the loving memories of The 500 Acre Wood were a stark reminder of the hollowness of alcohol. Neither alcohol nor weed nor any other mind altering externality can reconnect me with some idealized past.
A sober friend of mine brought some O’Doul’s over many years ago to watch football. He enjoys drinking non-alcoholic beer and always has some on hand. I’ve tried it before. I thought it tasted fine, but never saw the point. Kinda like decaf coffee. I just never jived with the concept.
I continued, “To that point, I hadn’t had a drink in 28 days, since my day after Thanksgiving debacle. I was having a perfect sober December to remember, but then suddenly, here I was, thoroughly disappointed about our canceled trip. Without a second thought, I tossed all my sober aspirations out the window. Christmas Eve would have been day 29.”
“Sober October?” I reflected. I had never heard the term, but somehow I felt myself drawn to it. By this point in the pandemic I was drinking like a fish nearly every night and a break from alcohol seemed alluring.