Transparent Tuesdays

Issue 187

You guys,

For 13 years I drank nearly every night and blacked out often and called it fun.

Drinking alcohol promised a good time. There would be laughter, loud voices, people letting their guards down—and it would last for hours. 

As I’ve gotten older that window of fun has lessened and the hangovers have worsened. Drinking makes me tired, makes me lose track of my thoughts so I can never finish a story, and because it’s impossible to sleep well after a night of drinking, it makes me snippy with Sam and our two toddlers the entire next day. 

With all those negative side effects it would make sense to eliminate alcohol completely but I haven’t. In the past 289 days I’ve drank 19 nights, thanks to a note in my phone titled: 2023 Drinking. 

Somehow, within that window of time that continues to shrink, there is still a thrill when the cork is popped and the first glasses are poured. It’s the same feeling I used to get with a spur-of-the-moment middle school sleepover. 

I’m playing at Lonnie’s house and about to be driven home when she boldly asks her mom if I can stay over. We’re sure her mom will say no but she doesn’t. She says, “As long as Charlie’s mom is okay with it,” and we jump up and down and squeal at the potential for what is about to take place for the rest of our surely epic night. 

That’s how I felt when the glass first touched my lips for Sam’s birthday last week. We had just arrived at his parents house and my father–in-law presented us with a bottle of Billecart Salmon. This wasn’t just any bottle of wine. It’s the first wine the four of us ever drank together when I met them in Palm Springs during a family vacation. Hank and I had argued over the pronunciation. He said it phonetically: Billy-Kart Salmon. I told him it was French: Beel-car Sa-mon. We drunkenly looked up the pronunciation on YouTube and practiced saying it with exaggerated emphasis all night long. Three years later when Sam proposed to me with both our parents as witnesses, we celebrated with a bottle of Billecart Salmon. And now for Sam’s birthday we celebrated again. 

Later that night after we put the kids to bed, we joined the family for one more drink. I didn’t like the way it tasted anymore and all I wanted to do was take off my jeans and put on jammies. 

When I did finally get in bed I was too hot. I flipped side-to-side and turned my pillow over and over but couldn’t get cool or comfortable. I had a terrible dream. In it, I’ve returned to my old ways, drinking every night, and even though it makes me miserable I can’t stop. I’m stuck in the dream, wasting my life away. When I wake up my Oura ring tells me to take it easy today. 

I sit up in bed and sigh. Drinking alcohol is not fun. The idea of it is fun, just like a middle school sleepover.

Lonnie and I sprinted downstairs to her basement to make our big plans for the evening. “We should make a movie!” she’d say. “Let’s stay up all night!” I’d say back. 

More often than not we didn’t do either. We watched TV until midnight and when I tucked myself into a sleeping bag on the floor I longed for my bed. The thrill of the sleepover was gone. And when I woke up the next morning I couldn’t wait to get home.

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Until next week,

Charlie