Sometimes I like to think about my options. Here they are.

Option 1. I could start drinking again in, like, 15 minutes.

Option 2. I could decide that this sobriety �experiment� was meant to last only a year. Four months from now, I could drink again. As long as I make that decision in advance, it won�t be considered giving up. Right?

Option 3. I could wait for The Sign to come and tell me it�s time to start drinking again. The Sign could be anything, good or bad, but I�ll know it when I see it. Once I see The Sign, starting to drink again won�t even be optional. It�ll be out of my hands.

Option 4. I could start dating someone who is a historically non-problematic light to medium-light drinker, and by proximity and the power of love I will be able to be a light to medium-light drinker too. I like this option. We could be whiskey connoisseurs and shit. Whiskey! Yum! Whiskey-whiskey-whiskey! Yum-yum-yum! Drool-snort-gurgle! Twitch-fart-seizure! Okay, maybe I�m not cut out to be a connoisseur.

Option 5. Options?!? I have no fucking options. I have trapped myself forever in this merciless dry well of an existence.

Not surprisingly, Option 5 is the least fun to consider. Sadly, I think about it often. In fact, the other options really exist only to temper my consideration of Option 5. I mean, Option 1 (Drink Now) is only an option like going out and shooting people or jumping out the window is an option, but I need to remind myself that I am operating on choice here. I am not under a court order or on parole. I�m not being drug tested. Technically, I haven�t even promised anyone I won�t drink. But even after considering all that, I don�t feel any freer.

Options 2 (One Year) and 3 (The Sign) are pathetic cop-outs that I�m saving for a rainy day. Option 4 (Connoisseurship) is a joke, so I�m back to Option 5 (No Options), which shuttles me back to Option 1 (Drink Now).

I suppose there could or should be an Option 6: I could live happily ever after without drinking at all. That doesn�t sound like much of an option to me. In fact in sounds really sucky.

I was thinking about this entry last night and I dreamed about drinking. In my dream, I realized after the fact that I had been drinking the night before. It had been a fun night out, nothing bad had happened, and I�d even made a tenuous peace with my estranged best friend. Still, I felt very dissatisfied, and couldn�t decide whether the evening had been a resounding success or a heartbreaking failure. As the dream ended, my friend and I were driving aimlessly away from my home in a really cool car. I was trying to have a good time and enjoy the car, but I was worried about how I was going to get back home.

It�s easy to think of drinking as a comfy home I�ve left, almost by accident, and I can�t get back to. But I suppose quitting drinking is sort of a homecoming itself, to a different sort of home. A cleaner home, for one thing.

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