Two years dry and sober have me thinking so many different things. The strangest part is seeing simple things as new. Just one example was the way the light was falling from the skylight, hitting the bathroom tub. It looked warm and comforting, familiar and old. I can only assume that’s how it feels for a soldier coming home after six months of war. Does that make me a real hero? I think so. I am actually impressed with myself for actually doing this thing. It qualifies as a battle.

It’s also weird that time itself is different now. Two years feels like twenty and yesterday at the same time. It’s difficult to explain but it feels like I’m nostalgic for how alcohol made me feel, intoxicated and energetic, but I’m someone else having someone else’s memories. It really throws me into a science fiction frame of mind, questioning all of reality, time and space.

I wonder what’s actually happening to my brain? Is it permanent damage or trying to rebuild itself? Is it just aging or just starting to grow from years of arrested development? Probably all of the above.

I remember the taste of crisp, cold, twangy beer, but I have little real desire to drink again. I remember, clearly, enjoying a tall Schlitz Malt Liquor when I was about eight years old. I was instantly enamored with it’s power of taste and tingling intoxication.

I sometimes think I probably could enjoy a drink again and not fall into the habitual pattern, but I ask, why? I don’t need it and I’ll probably regret it. I’ve taken that as far as I could and somehow, I’m still alive. Everyday life is so much better without it. That temptation is easier to ignore now, but it comes and goes. If it can be equated to Tennyson, ” ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”, I have to strongly disagree. We would all be better off never falling for alcohol.

I also know and fear the power of that addiction. The feeling that I could just take it or leave it is really a trick to get me to start drinking again. It’s what the voices are saying. It’s the Devil himself. The addiction. Luckily, I’m defiant and stubborn and have somehow turned those attributes around against the Devil, I think. I hope.

I’ve also had to come to terms with the reality of our boozing culture in my journey to sobriety. I despise alcohol. I wish it was never invented. It ruins so many lives. But, I have to acknowledge, not everyone has a problem.

But, there’s a part of me that believes that everyone does have a problem and they just don’t know it, because all alcohol is inherently a problem. If you have a problem, and you drink, you have a drinking problem.

I see the, not so subtle, changes in personality and am amazed at how people don’t recognize or acknowledge it. Sometimes they justify it or outright deny it. At least I was always very open and clear about my alcoholism, except when I wasn’t, which was always. Is that clear enough?

I don’t miss the legal risk of drinking and driving. The chance of getting arrested…again. The embarrassment, the possibility of having kids taken away, and the monetary cost is so stressful. The State has a money grab system that punishes lightweight drinkers and lines politicians’ pockets with cash for years. The only good thing is the required education, although, if you are wealthy and connected, or pretty enough, you can get out of it. It’s just another way to vaguely legally oppress the poor and slap the wrists of the opportunistic. It’s the American way.

I do miss the illusion of freedom, starting the weekend early, or rewarding the accomplishment of just making it through the day, everyday, sometimes with a crisp, cold beer in a cute and tiny paper bag on the way home from the last job site, or usually, with an all day iced twelve pack in the cooler in the back, patiently waiting for hours for the moment of birth, always providing a good beer buzz by the time I hit the driveway. And I miss the laughter, smoke, and libations with the crew, leaning against the fender on the tired and resting, rugged pickup truck. The continuing celebration and ritual of being a working man. The refreshment mixed with the sweat and the dirt and the blood of the everyday struggle, settling the nerves of yesterday’s hangover, hitting the reset button on my vital organs. Man, I miss that. Who wouldn’t?