My favorite thing to do on the planet is to drink large amounts of beer, blear the evening or afternoon and sleep it off. There’s nothing quite like it on Earth. I’ll admit my experience in this life has not been wide. I have not been outside of the United States except for a week-long trip to a resort in Mexico. And I have not been outside of my element, except when I was dragged, kicking and screaming in borrowed clown-sized chinos, to play a round of golf at an upscale Arizona course.
I haven’t been to the Amazon. I haven’t taught children in rural India. I haven’t motocycled through Chile. I haven’t done anything. Not much interests me except drinking and listening to rock music and singing along. That has to change. Although I’m not sure which part yet.
Maybe because I have never actually felt in my element. Ever. I never felt at home with any particular social hot-pocket. Not with the nerds, although admittedly I am one. Not with the indie rock kids, although, again, admittedly I am one. Not the theater kids, the sports geeks, the poet cloud, the smart kids. No one. But that’s just the point.
Booze was my social rosetta stone. It connected me to all things and all things to me. It elicited an interest in people and their lives and the lives of the non-human and the things beyond things and the things beyond that. A connection to my spirit?
I’m romanticizing. All of it was muddy. I’m looking at it through beer-colored lenses. It was jagged and made me edgy. However, I feel doubt creeping in through the fantasy of it, and the reality of it. It is growing heavier. There’s no question I can stay sober, that’s not the issue. The issue is that I don’t think drinking was the issue. Of course it’s about something deeper. There’s a kraken beneath the sinking ship.
I guess 20 days sober is not long enough to offer any tangible evidence of efficacy. If my patterns that have persisted these past tens years of drinking continue through this “clear headedness” for another few months, then, well, I know I’ll need more than a spear-gun and snorkel to get deep enough to even wound the leviathan. I’ll need some cognitive therapy and a twelve pack of beer.
