Lot of different ways I could begin this particular missive/narrative, and I’ll try not go to super deep time-wise on it because it could get self-indulgent (or self-destructive!), but … well, here goes.
Back maybe 13 months ago, about a month before COVID, one weekday I had gone out, pounded about nine beers at some place, driven home (not wise), and I posted something on Facebook like “Where are the best tacos in DFW?” (I live there.) I think I was contemplating ordering tacos from an app and wanted to crowdsource it. Instead, I fell asleep watching a rerun of Law and Order: SVU.
I woke up later and saw that post, which had like 145 comments. (People are passionate about tacos.) I completely had no recollection of posting it. I felt pretty bad about that, but since then I’ve done similar stupid shit here and again.
I think the first time I day drank was probably a Sunday in 2005, when I was maybe 24, at a place in West Hartford called Elbow Room. I was up on the rooftop bar, just drinking and flipping through my pre-iPhone phone, texting my friend Annie and whatnot. Since then, I’ve probably done that same thing, with different phones and messaging different people, about 1,500 times. Maybe more.
I’ve gotten in some trouble along that path, as you’d expect, mostly around stupid social media posts, dumb texts, dumb email sends, missed appointments, etc.
Here’s one good (?) story of lost friendship, and here’s another.
So if I know this shit is self-destructive, why would I keep doing it? I can unequivocally answer that:
- Depression
- Low-grade addiction
- Want to feel connected to something
- Want to distance from my reality
- Think it’s “helpful”
- White-collar work isn’t really that hard if you’re an organized person
So anyway, last Thursday I get this hernia surgery. The surgery is 45 minutes. Not a huge deal. I’m probably 70% recovered already, before a full week is up, although I am wearing a weird girdle around my midsection. That’s cute.
Before the surgery, I’m in the “holding” area and I’m there for about an hour before anyone comes up to me to talk about the procedure. I think a lot. Like I get deep in my head and emotions way way way more than most guys do. So I’m thinking about a bunch of shit in that holding room, including — >
- Probably wouldn’t even be getting a hernia surgery if I wasn’t a fat prick from day-side piping of IPAs
- I entered the hospital that day through Labor and Delivery. Would I have been entering that way in a different context if I chased better decisions?
- The guy to my left in the holding pen is 47 and just listed 30 medications he’s on. Is that why people disparage America?
- I had texted a few people about my surgery and got like one response. Is that just people being busy, or am I “friendship-cancelled?”
So before my buff-as-fuck anesthesiologist comes over to talk, I’m down a nice rabbit hole of thoughts and ideas and emotions.
And sitting on that gurney in that pen, I just said to myself, You know, I should probably stop day drinking. It’s pretty stupid.
To prep for that surgery, I hadn’t for a couple of days, and now since then, I haven’t either.
So now I’m chasing probably two weeks of not doing it. Why not keep it up, right?
Right.
Now, is there a possibility that at some point in the future I might be invited to a “Sunday Funday” and consume a beer with others at 2pm on a Sunday? Yes, that possibility exists. I’d even call it a “good one,” maybe.
But 1pm on a Wednesday? I think I can consistently keep passing on that, which feels good.
Cue up Ted Bauer Version 7.0, and away we go.
** And to anyone I have offended with an email, text, or post around 3pm on a Wednesday when maybe I wasn’t in right mind — I apologize, honestly. **
