“I told your sister you’ve given up alcohol and you know what she said?” my mother giggled, as she stood in the IGA aisle where I’d run into her. “She said that you won’t be fun anymore.”
Two thoughts ran through my head; firstly, why is my mother telling me this and secondly, why on Earth is my sister making inflammatory remarks to my mother, which she must know will be repeated ad nauseam at every given opportunity?
Sure enough, a week later, my mother brought it up again.
“Your sister said you won’t be fun anymore now that you don’t drink,” she chortled, as she sat on my couch nursing a glass of red.
I wondered how I should respond.
It’s not easy giving up the booze. It’s been seven weeks’ abstinence now and I’d been hoping my loved ones would support me.
The truth is, when you decide to do something like this, you have to do it for yourself.
As someone old and wise once said, you're born alone and sober and you must die alone and sober.
Yes, I made that up.
Anyway, what my sister is saying is true.
Anyway, what my sister is saying is true.
I’m not fun anymore.
When I go to lunch and I drink ginger ale, my speech doesn’t ever begin to slur and I no longer sound like a sloppy, aging lush and we all know how bloody uninspiring and tedious that can be.
When people come over for happy hour and I’m drinking apple juice, I don’t start loudly pontificating about my political views or become gushy and extravagant over inane rubbish like I used to. I don’t sprout bullshit about crap nobody really cares about. Basically, I’m dull and sober and shouldn’t be invited anywhere.
When drinking non-alcoholic beverages, my eyes don’t go bloodshot and droopy, my nose fails to swell and my bloated face doesn’t flush so red that I look like W.C. Field’s long lost granddaughter. In fact, without booze I still look mind-numbingly normal.
I don’t even LOOK fun without alcohol.
After two glasses of apple juice, I don’t begin to walk with a slight, Johnny Depp-like sway and I don’t begin to stop counting my apple juices because my brain is numbed by ethanol and then proceed to wake up the next morning with a cloudy, pounding head.
When I go to lunch and I drink ginger ale, my speech doesn’t ever begin to slur and I no longer sound like a sloppy, aging lush and we all know how bloody uninspiring and tedious that can be.
When people come over for happy hour and I’m drinking apple juice, I don’t start loudly pontificating about my political views or become gushy and extravagant over inane rubbish like I used to. I don’t sprout bullshit about crap nobody really cares about. Basically, I’m dull and sober and shouldn’t be invited anywhere.
When drinking non-alcoholic beverages, my eyes don’t go bloodshot and droopy, my nose fails to swell and my bloated face doesn’t flush so red that I look like W.C. Field’s long lost granddaughter. In fact, without booze I still look mind-numbingly normal.
I don’t even LOOK fun without alcohol.
After two glasses of apple juice, I don’t begin to walk with a slight, Johnny Depp-like sway and I don’t begin to stop counting my apple juices because my brain is numbed by ethanol and then proceed to wake up the next morning with a cloudy, pounding head.
I'm here to tell you, mornings are particularly tedious with a lucid brain. It’s especially unexciting when you remember everything you said the previous night and you have no blackout memory to agonise over. There are no more hours happily spent wondering where that weird bruise came from. Where's the fun and mystery of life in that?
Ginger ale doesn’t make me think my jokes are amusing so I’m even exponentially boring and dreary to myself these days.
In short, I’m just not fun anymore in any possible way.
Only people who drink are fun.
You can’t be fun if you don’t drink.
Cheers to that... /raises a glass of apple juice.