I�m tired of this [is what I�d tell myself if I allowed myself to follow such lines of thought, which I don�t]. I�m tired of this charade. Because it is a charade, isn�t it? I was never really an alcoholic. Just a drama queen, really, looking for some attention, some kind of legitimacy. I just needed to pull my shit together for a couple of years, make some changes, grow up a little. And I�ve done it. So maybe it�s time to drop the charade and rejoin life.

Recently I was out with a guy I really liked and some of his friends. They ordered pitchers of margaritas, so I was forced to make a big production of calling back the waitress and ordering something else for myself. My not drinking made a couple of his friends self-conscious, and they said things like, �You must think we�re such lushes,� which made me think things like, �Give me a break, you goddamn lightweight, you don�t even know the meaning of the word drink.� If I just would have drank the fucking margaritas we�d probably have been making out by the end of the night. But no, and no, he�s not interested in going out again. [Sure, my sobriety is probably not the main reason he�s not interested. It could be, oh, let�s see, my ugliness, or my fatness? You see why it�s nice to think it�s my sobriety.]

This weekend I was out with an old friend at a bar. All around us, small groups of intimates were slipping into serious, sympathetic conversation, laughing together. I know they were feeling that magical connection that alcohol can bring: �This is my life. I�m tapped in. Here it is, the good part.� I never get that anymore. I never get to feel like everything is going to be okay. Our conversation seemed to halt and stall.

And coming home from work on a Friday evening in summer, after a hard week and a bitter romantic disappointment, I�d like to sit out on the stoop with a beer. I�d really like to. I would cut off a few of my fingers if it would make it okay to have that beer. Four of them --two on each hand.

So maybe it�s time to pack it in, tear it down, give it up [is what I might decide, if I allowed myself such thoughts]. Go back to the land of the living, close the door on this austere and lonely room.

The strictures and the regular schedule of my current life would prevent me from overindulging [is how I�d argue it, if I ever let myself get that far, which I wouldn�t]. I no longer have boozer friends and I always have something important to do in the morning. It would all work out, I�m sure of it.

[Ha.]

[Ha?]

[Hmm.]

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