Fat but not forgotten Tuesday

Addictions are a funny thing.  They creep up on you like a stealth cat with beckoning green eyes, the heart of a snake and body of a broken-winged angel.  They hide in the corner, like a shadow waiting to come out.

My daughter used to tease me, “you’re just a wanna-be alcoholic”, she’d say and maybe I was but really who would willingly sign up for that unless there was an issue?

The line of my drinking not clearly demarcated one way or another back then. No holiday scenes, DUIs, no tickets unless you count the one I got in college for open containers as I walked home from a bar with a plastic cup of beer in hand.  No passing out debacles at the dinner table or embarrassment to my friends and family.  No lost jobs, missed school pick-ups with my kids. No one was calling me out that I had a problem.  Actually quite the contrary.  Calling me out for quitting.

Why would you do that?  And more importantly, why did I?  I am still not sure why I offered up a prayer of petition to Mother Mary seven years ago in February just as lent was starting, that if she intervened to help save my dog I would quit alcohol for the rest of my life. My dog is still here but alcohol now missing.

So in alms and in reminiscence of what I did give up, it seems fitting to toast to her or him today on Fat Tuesday. Let’s say I am giving myself my own toast today with a chipped cup. A cup in celebration and honor to alcohol for what it offered me for so many years.

It wasn’t the buzz at the end of my day that I miss the most or the way it would help me circumvent stress.  It is more its place at the center of my social circle.  Alcohol walked hand and hand with me.  An attractive handbag. At restaurant and parties and almost any outing, it was there. It’s inclusiveness I miss, sitting and beaming the centerpiece placed in the middle of the table for all to see.  Both figuratively and literally, the deliciousness.  Enjoying each other’s company.  The knowing look from servers that yes, they had my drink coming right away and the next one not far behind.  I’ve forgotten up until now how it would help to mute and buffer my life.  Uplift my spirit, it’s vernacular apropos. I didn’t appreciate its importance enough. As a lover, you take for granted until they are gone.

The hilarity, taste, sophistication, enjoyment, wild abandon.  I toast today to you with an empty cup full of gratitude.  I tell my drinking compadres, I understand why you aren’t surrounded by non-drinkers.  We shine the light and you’d rather have the dimmer switch on. I get it.  So with my own light shining brightly, I sayCarpe Diem!  Seize the day.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart with my emptied chipped cup in hand.  And as I offer this toast, I glance down at its emptiness, as something is starting to bubble up with the taste of something new.
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