Thirsty Thursday: Sober Pairing

Today is 100 days, which seems like a lot, but it's really just a drop in the fucking bucket of a lifetime. It's tough to say whether what I thought I'd feel like when I hit triple digits. I pretty much feel the same as I did on Day 2. I never really felt the elation of "finally being sober." I also never felt miserable enough that I wanted to give it up. It's just kind of a low-burn disappointment that life has led me to this point.

I think the problem was that I was good at it. Well, good at it so much as that I enjoyed it most of the time. I sincerely enjoyed drinking. I enjoyed what most would consider "problem drinking." I'm thinking mostly the act of drinking alone, like going to a bar at lunch and drinking, and also those rare drink-all-weekend events. I was at a bachelor party in April 2022. It was one of my favorite weekends of middle age so far. I also literally drank from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to sleep. But I was thriving, man. That's the problem! I felt like my best self sometimes, in the thick of it. And now, ya know, I don't get to feel that way.

I feel like I'm repeating myself at this point in Thirsty Thursday. My bad. I guess that really goes to show how slow the icebergs of emotional change are when it comes to this shit. I wonder if there will ever come a time when I'm not worried about it. Worried about being in a situation in which I know I'd feel better about myself if I had a few light beers under my belt.

I've been referring to those situations as "challenges," maybe as a subconscious attempt to feel better about myself in those situations, when I get through them. I have "met the challenge" or whatever. Eh. I think eventually I'm going to have to stop thinking about it that way if I don't want to feel that way about those particular situations. Easier said then done.

Like when we got to this vacation house this past Saturday. Fuck, man, those feelings of regret and longing really smacked me in the face in that moment, when we open up the deck sliding doors and walk out to see that this house is right along the idyllic Susquehanna River, and there's a dock, with a chair, perfect for sitting on and drinking as I soak in nature and watch the water idle by and find my happy place and just fucking relax and feel at one with the universe and all that shit. I get in my head thinking that, fuck, life would be so much better with alcohol right now.

When I say sobriety is "challenging," I'm not saying that there is any tangible chance that I'm going to "slip," give into the demons and get loaded on this family vacation. It feels icky to say it, like I'm projecting false strength and lacking a necessary humility, but I'm just speaking my truth. I don't feel temptation like that. The only temptation, and the only challenge, is just getting out of my own fucking head and finding ways to enjoy these situations without alcohol, enjoy them at least enough that I can just get through it, get through another fucking day. White-knuckling for me isn't staying away from alcohol; white-knuckling is trying to be happy while I do it.

"Making the best of it" is a good way of putting it, although a bit trite. But I was thinking about the phrase on the first night of our vacation. My sister-in-law organized a beer and Girl Scout cookie pairing for all the adults. Awesome idea. Obviously I co-sign the idea. Only problem is that I'm locked out of the pairing due to self-imposed limitations. That's my problem, not anyone else's, so I'm just... making the best of it. Ugh, feels so dumb to be saying that. But there's no other way to put it at this point. I'm told that you have to lean on clichés sometimes to make sobriety work. I'll swallow the Kool-Aid.

My way of "making the best of it" specifically in regards to the cookie pairing was to buy a bunch of sober drinks, and pair them as best I could with the cookies presented. (I didn't include Kool-Aid in the sober drink lineup, which is a shame, since if I did then the Kool-Aid reference at the end of the previous paragraph could have worked as a pun.) This would come with the added benefit of being able to include the kids in the proceedings. There comes with sobriety a certain sense of having to reevaluate the relationships in your life, and maybe this could be a big one—instead of the uncle who is content to supervise the kids by himself in the basement and get fucking lit while they watch Shrek and goof around, I could be the uncle who actively finds ways to include the kids in whatever cool shit the adults are getting into.

So there's some optimism for ya. It's not a lot, but it's enough for this week. I won't be cracking open a beautifully cold beer on a lazy summer afternoon in bucolic rural PA, but I'll be hanging out with family and I'll be creating new tastes by drinking sober elixirs and eating Girl Scout cookies. I just need the bare minimum to get through and white-knuckle this shit. I'm gonna make it. Give me 100 more.

Here are the pairings, in order of tasting, along with a score of each pairing from 0 to 5 pukes.

1. Caramel deLites, paired with cream soda — 3.5 pukes out of 5 — sweet paired with sweet works on occasion, and it works here. 

2. Lemonades, paired with raspberry iced tea — 2.5 puke out of 5 — I dunno, maybe a bit too like/like, or maybe a bit too much like an Arnold Palmer, or maybe I'm still not over the raspberry iced tea vomit incident of 1999.

3. Peanut Butter Patties, paired with black cherry soda — 1 puke out of 5 — dogshit, mostly because the black cherry soda didn't really go with anything, and I only had five sober drinks, so the pairing was out of necessity more so than out of an aspirations that it would actually work.

4. Thin Mints, paired with Yoohoo — 1.5 pukes out of 5 — Look, no offense to Yoohoo. It's just that I hate Thin Mints and always have. Not even the wonderful sugar water that is Yoohoo could save it.

5. Toast-Yay!s, paired with Nesquik Strawberry Banana Milk — 4.5 pukes out of 5 —Finally, a pairing that makes sense! Breakfast flavors (fruit, dairy, cinnamon) go really well together. It's no French Toast Crunch with Lionshead in the bowl instead of 2% milk, but it'll do for today.