Adventures in Temporary Enforced Sobriety, Part 2

I quit drinking September 7. Or rather, I started my potentially life-saving antibiotics September 7. Whatever. On September 9 I went to a nighttime event at a museum in San Francisco, because my best friend since 11th grade had driven up from LA with her husband, whose band was playing the event. You know what people do at nighttime events at museums? They drink. You know what my best friend does when she goes to see her husband’s band play? She drinks. You know what my punk-ass husband does when he’s forced to go see my best friend’s husband’s hippie-ass band?(Love is thicker than water but aesthetic differences float.) Yup. Drink. So you know what I did? I asked the bartender to make me “something fun and nonalcoholic.” He made me a Shirley Temple, the first of four of the evening. So yeah, I got high on sugar, increasingly annoyed at the devolving state of my loved ones' conversational timbre, and then got the hell out of there in time to save the scene from my big-ass grump.That was my official entree into What This Is Really Gonna Be Like. But that’s just the beginning of it — the social part. I knew about that, and I’d been worrying over it. But what I hadn’t thought about, and what has been holding the most fascination for me, is the liminal spaces that alcohol is normally so good at ushering me through: the threshold between work and home, crossed with the help of a glass of wine or a bottle of beer at happy hour or in my kitchen; the threshold between being outside of an event and inside, occupied so easily with the search for the bar, the search through the drink menu, the search for an available bartender. These transitions are now naked for me, navigated only by their mere fact: once I was here doing this, now I am here not doing it and probably doing other things. I am forced to be present and take care of my own emotional state. Like a fucking actual human adult. Ugh.Here are some bad things that have come out of this respite so far:

• Sugar. So much sugar. Fancy ginger ale at the rock show, chocolates on the couch. Delicious, nonalcoholic sugar. I call it my “TB Sweets” cure, in honor of Van Morrison.
• More weekend nights on said couch; I’m not going to bother hanging out with my pals at the bar when all they’re gonna do is drink delicious rose and whiskey and whatnot. My couch isn’t very good for my back, and I am developing a fresh new neurosis — that is sure to end up in the DSM — about binge-watching too many spectacular series. (Upside: I have a dog.)
• Man, do I miss making fun of elaborate Oakland cocktail menus wherein every other exotically-titled ingredient is just another stupid amaro.

Here are some good things that have come out of this respite so far:

• More money in my pocket.
• Less heartburn.
• More legal weed card (well, just the one).
• Better-fitting jeans, partially because of the boozelessness but also because my food intake must be fairly regulated to accommodate antibiotics taken on an empty stomach twice a day and probiotics taken far enough away from the antibiotics so as to not counteract their beneficial effects. So, no more afternoon snacks for momma. None. And thaaaat’s my faaavorite time to snaaack. Wah.
• Better conversations with abovementioned dear ones in recovery.
• Better brain function — yes, I can actually feel my brain being sharper, and I like it, because I’ve always liked my brain best of all my parts and now it works better.

So what will happen January 7? Will I go back to my committed, enthusiastic recreational drinking? Will the EMTs agree to be on standby? Perhaps not that day. And perhaps not at all. It’s early still, but I could easily see myself privileging the sharpness of my brain over a second glass of wine on a weeknight (or a third shot of tequila on a Saturday afternoon). Easy to see now, with the sharp brain and all. Check back.