My Scientific Experiment

It looks like I only needed a week’s reprieve from alcohol to fully recover from Memorial Day’s festivities, so I should be posting some reviews and shit later this week or next.

“A week’s reprieve?” you ask, dumbfounded.
Yup.  TD’s taken a break from drinking.  Currently a week in, and looking strong to make it to Saturday (lil’ bro’s graduation party).

“Whuh… why the fuck would you do that?” you stammer.

Well, that remarkable hangover/feeling of regret I get after a serious binge has escalated to a point that I honestly have to ask myself why I put myself through it.  Now, to be clear, this isn’t some sort of revelation of alcoholism: I know goddamn well I’m an alcoholic, and I’m proud of it.  Actually, that’s a disservice to true alcoholics, who need that sweet sweet juice to survive from day to day.  I’m actually just a social alcoholic: the kind of dude who doesn’t crack a beer to relax unless he’s then cracking the other 23 in the case and getting fucked up.

With that out of the way, I decided to take a brief respite from the haze of drinking to see what exactly would happen.  Understand, I haven’t NOT drank during a weekend since I was, like, 16.  Actually, I did have a spell in 2001 where I took a 2-week break for the same reasons as now.  The result of THAT experiment was as follows:

• I had a lot more money.
• I realized what assholes most drunks (including myself) can be when drunk.
• I was super paranoid about the state of the world, how evil our government was, and just how meaningless our existence in general is as human beings.

I think I also managed to lose a small amount of weight.  All in all, pretty successful. So, how hard is it for a guy like me to NOT drink on a weekend?

Pretty fucking difficult.

Especially with a fridge completely STOCKED with a variety of beers and two fucking CASES of Yuengling quarts tempting me from the garage.  On top of that, there’s the reputation I’ve built for myself as “party guy numero uno” and it seems to physically shock/upset people when I don’t drink because I’m not being my “normal self” (i.e., “the drunken comedian”). We had friends over to watch Battlestar Galactica (fuck you, it rules) and the husband actually hesitated to crack open a beer when I told him I was on the wagon.  Like drinking had somehow become taboo in our once-alcoholic household, or his consumption would throw my whole experiment out the window.  I appreciated the courtesy he showed, but it really shouldn’t be THAT weird when I abstain.

Also, going out proves to be a chore.  You realize just how much drinking beer invades your life on a regular basis: when eating, when relaxing, when doing housework, when breathing… all of that shit.  So, I decided to stay indoors and help the wife and in-laws work on the house.  I actually opted to take on a fucking stump in our backyard that refuses to die, armed only with a rinky-dink sawsall and shovel.

Fucking stump won… for now.  I’m blaming sobriety for somehow pussifying me.  You’ll get yours, Mother Nature…

I woke up at 7:30 Saturday and Sunday mornings and got some shit accomplished.  Now, I normally wake up that early on the weekends (drunk or not) but not a lot is accomplished when my head’s cloudy with a hangover (or full of alcohol because I started drinking at 8:00am).  The trouble, though, is that I was still fatigued and had a headache.  I actually felt like I’d been drinking.

Which led me to my current hypothesis:

My body (and the bodies of other social alcoholics) actually MANUFACTURES booze when the body needs it.

I’m still trying to figure out what body part does this miraculous task (does the spleen do anything?), but it was as if my body was in shock from the absence of its weekend alcohol.  So much so, it released some from the massive stores I’ve accumulated throughout my years of abuse (my gut DOES look a tad bit smaller).  Hence, the hangover without the drinking.

So, in the end, where does this leave me?  Will I ever completely give up drinking?

Hell no, for multiple reasons:

• Being around drunks when sober sucks ass.  Knowing this doesn’t make me a better drunk, but it does remind me to not be AS drunk when around sober people.  Or avoid them altogether, because nothing’s worse than a drunk who THINKS he’s acting sober.
• That haze that alcohol brings with it?  It might just be a good thing.  Ignorance really IS bliss, because my mind was going non-stop on all sorts of problems I either manufactured or had ignored for years: the kind of scary shit that really can change a person if they dwell on them.  I’ve been feeling very existential over the last several months, and looking at my situation with a sober mind is fucking FRIGHTENING (like, “suicidal if not for the love of my wife” kind of shit).  I won’t bore you, but don’t get me started the next time I’m drinking.  I will TOTALLY kill any buzz you have (ask Trent and Screff about the night AFTER Memorial Day, if you don’t believe me).
• I can get the same amount of shit accomplished whether I’m sloshed or not.  I’m actually a bit more productive when juiced, as I have that euphoria propelling me to get shit done so I can drink more.  Now, the QUALITY of work I’m doing suffers as the drinks grow, so don’t let me do housework after three shots (ask HFB-D about the aftermath of Hurricane Drunken Trevor/Screff).
• Why have all of the aftereffects of drinking (headache, fatigue, etc.), WITHOUT the feel-good benefits?
• I’m a lot surlier and on-edge when off the sauce.  Ask HFB-D, who at one point in the weekend said “Just get a fucking beer already.  You’re mean when you’re sober!”
• That beer’s not going to drink itself, and your party sucks when I’m sober.

Nothing life-changing.  No real deep insights into the human condition (short of that existential shit).  I am making a conscious effort to slow the fuck down, though.  Throwing a party isn’t that fun when you have to have the entire party explained to you the following morning by those who actually DIDN’T black out.  I used to be the last guy awake/drinking at a party; I’d like to get back to that.

So, if you see me nursing a beer instead of pounding it, you know why.  And, hopefully, I’ll remember that beer the next day (and where all of that blood came from).