Hallelujah for the Un-Drunk

I’ve thought about this post since before I even thought about writing a blog.  I’ve dismissed it so many times, because it’s really not all that funny.  And funny is what the people want, right?  Oh well, the people will have to suck it up and wait for the next post. 

Today is one of the most significant days in my entire life- and yet it passed completely unacknowledged in any way.  No cake, no gifts, no fanfare.  No one even aware of the date other than me.  I did manage to get fajitas, but it’s not all that hard to get fajitas on a Sunday.   While they were tasty fajitas, the margarita was what I was really after.  There was a time when the margarita would have been the sole purpose of the trip- but no more- and not for the last five years.

Some people reading this who knew me a while ago probably remember me as a pretty heavy drinker.  Not usually an ugly drinker, but a heavy drinker nonetheless.  Not one to let any major event go un-drunk.  Drinking was something that I loved, until it was something that I hated.  Something that rotted me from the inside out and ruined almost everything about me as a person.  Something that caused me to suffer silently, when I was always surrounded by people.  Something that had to stop.

On February 10, 2008, I decided that drinking and I were breaking up.  Not because anyone forced me into rehab or because I crashed my car into a ditch or anything like that.  But because Chardonnay was a really shitty companion.  And so it passed unceremoniously out of my life. I stopped drinking that day, without any celebration or high fives. As the song says, “It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”  But it’s a hallelujah no less. 

I remember counting those early days, thinking about how many weeks it had been and then how many months- obsessing about every day not unlike when you’re newly pregnant and feel like there is a HUGE difference between being SIX weeks pregnant and SEVEN weeks pregnant.  Like there should be a ticker tape parade at the changing of the weeks.  And then a year went by, and then two.  I don’t even remember three and four, mainly from baby-induced insomnia/hysteria.  Now here I am at five- just weeks away from delivering another round of madness that will likely glaze my eyes over for the next few years.  I know it’s just a matter of time until it’s ten.

Now that I’ve broken up with Chardonnay, I am back to being the painfully introverted dork that I once was- but at least I’m here.  At least I haven’t been arrested, or disowned, or laughed at (to my face, at least.)  I’m just here-  un-drunk, fat, and happy.