It has been a long time since I have written, but I have
been busy. Very cliché, I know, but
check it out. I will give you the gist
of it.
First of all, I am still sober. Although, I feel weird saying that because
the drinking is still a non issue for me.
I haven’t had a single urge. On
the contrary, the further I move into my sobriety the more I am reminded of why
I don’t drink anymore. I see alcohol in action.
I am working in the food and beverage industry, again. If you had suggested to me a couple of years
ago that I would be waiting tables again, I would have scoffed at you and
completely denied the possibility. I was
done working in the industry that almost killed me.
A couple of (sober) years later, and my viewpoint is very
different than the one I had only a few months into my recovery. It is very possible to work in the restaurant
business without drinking. Actually, it
is more common than I realized when I was fucked up and thought everyone drank
as much as me. All of my friends did, I
thought.
Granted I completely changed my surroundings, and I did so
without even having to move to a different city. There is no point of trying to run from
alcohol. America is booze. America is a drinking culture. Watch Ken Burns’ Prohibition to get the whole picture. I didn’t go back to working in a dirty
college bar, but to one of the top ranked restaurants in the country. On top of that, I took and passed the Intro
level of Guild of Master Sommeliers Course without taking a sip of wine.
My health has vastly improved, as well. Early on, the doctors believed that even if I
lived through the end of 2011, I would never walk again. This summer I went on my first run in years –only
1.5 miles – and hiked the Arthur Ravenel Bridge for the first time since before
it opened. I took a lot of great
pictures and thought about how drinking kept me from doing things like that.
Unfortunately, I am at a loss when it comes to those around
me that still drink the way I did. They
visited me in the hospital. They saw
someone who didn’t even resemble me.
Every doctor I have spoken to about my case is sure to tell me that it
is quite rare that someone in my condition makes it out alive. Someone very close to me passed away last
fall. I know that he drank as much as I
did.
It’s just that no one wants to believe that they are any
worse off than the next person. The only
problem with that idea is that the only people worse off are dead. That is the only barometer. There are no pain receptors in your
liver. It is shredded and scarred and
mangled before there are any symptoms.
When your body finally collapses due to liver failure there
is no going back. The scarring never
goes away. And when and if you wake in
the hospital the doctors will tell you that you don’t have much time left,
unless you are very, very lucky. Like
me.
And you never drink, again.
Like me.
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