The List of Worthy Things and An Unfortunate Beer

Long ass day. Myself and two of my coworkers are in a training class all week, traveling an hour or more each way in traffic. The days are loooong, 12 hours plus. So I’m tired, but I thought this was amusing. One of the first things we looked at in our books, the chapter about Being an Installer was this:

Whew! I guess I dodged a bullet with number 2. And I think everything else on that list would be compromised by number two as well. Mind you my job is to get up on ladders, use power tools and just be generally scrappy. Now I’m thinking back to the days when I did all this shit with A BOOMING HANGOVER. I’m completely horrified. The potential for me, with my fuzzy little mind, to have hurt myself or others is very real. (Also, we heard a story about an installer losing his finger because he wore his wedding ring at work and got it caught on something…so thinking seriously about getting a tattooed ring.) And that could have happened to ME.

It didn’t and I’m fine as are unwitting coworkers, so like I said, dodged it. I’d like to say I couldn’t have pulled this long week off while I was drinking, but it’s not true. We did a class last fall and I drank so much one night I wanted to call in sick, but couldn’t let coworkers down so I dragged my sorry ass in. You know what I mean, “pulling it off.”

But not this time! I got up at 5:30 (not worrying about whether I might still be drunk), styled fancy new hair-do (and thanks to all you folks for your love on the new do, I guess if it looked bad you’d have just given me a “like” and shaken your heads in a “what has she DONE?” manner), got to wear “nice clothes” for a change, actual stylish blue jeans that fit me now (yay!!), new shirt from the much-maligned Costco trip (DKNY! $6!!), makeup, and the full accessory complex (since there was no danger in class of losing a body part.) I looked great! I felt insanely good. Was cat-walking doen the hallway to the classroom with my theme-song playing in my head’ “Venus”. IT’S ALL HAPPENING!!

So now that I’ve crowed about that shit, it’s time to fess up: I drank an actual beer last night. Yes, it’s true, the Demon Alcohol entered my body. Here’s what happened (I feel like I need to EXPLAIN): We went on a quest for NA beer that wouldn’t wreck me like the O’Douls, so the Beers of The World Mart (that’s not what it’s called) seemed a logical place. I grabbed my Clausthaler and spouse decided he wanted an ACTUAL beer. And I said fine. That’s not true, I said “Fuck yah!” and so we got a six-pack of each. I’m not going to lie, it was a nice beer, a Sierra Nevada Summer Lager, and it went down tasty. But I literally felt like shit (not emotionally, but physically) as soon as I drank it. It made me slightly dizzy and a sleepy and generally gave me a feeling of ALREADY BEING HUNGOVER. Um, no thanks. So that was it. Crawled into bed and set my alarm for 5:30. There is nothing THERE for me. Nothing I want.

So it’s not so much that I fell off the wagon, as I leaned over the edge rather precariously. I remember my first trip down sobriety lane when on the few occasions I have a glass of wine, I’d feel crappy like that. And I said to myself, your body doesn’t WANT this. And that kept me sober for a long time. Once you’ve gone without alcohol for an extended period, your body starts to revert to where it was before you ever drank, where you had to FORCE it down and push through the shit feeling to get to the buzz. But now I’m like, meh, that’s a lot of work. It also scares the piss out of me.

So I’m not doing it. My body has spoken, and the word is a resounding “Nay!!” Wagon is once again on the trail (oddly enough, the college where classes are held is on the Trails End Hwy, as in Oregon Trail, so wagons are a most appropriate metaphor.)