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To drink, or not to drink—that is the muddle
Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the slings of a drink
Or to take arms against a sea of enticements
By turning them down
Apologies to the Bard for dragging his immortal lines into my tipsy dilemma.
If you have ever hesitated over a glass of your once favourite brew —not wanting to miss the warmth of your best buddies and yet sticking to the clarity of abstinence—you might understand the quiet comedy of ambivalence.
As I settle for a deceptive glass of apple juice mixed with Sprite that mimics the deep amber of the finest single malt, I am once again fooling myself into believing I could have the best of both worlds—the ritual of a make-believe drink that pre-empts the playful persistence of friends without the consequences of alcohol.
And yet I wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all, my body. Just a small drink, and the warning bells would ring in bed — sabotaging my night with a pounding headache – urging me to renounce the spirit for good. During those turbulent moments, my body has the final word.
But my mind? Not as uncomplicated – as I find myself caught in this conundrum more often than I’d like to admit. A personal dilemma I keep revisiting – stuck somewhere in the middle—not quite a drinker, not quite a teetotaller; haunted by fond recollections of drinks shared with friends, deep conversations, unfiltered laughter for the silliest reasons when time felt suspended in mid-air. Moments etched for posterity; for eternity.
Abstinence, it turns out, comes with its own muscle memory — enough to make me wince at the aroma of what was hitherto so irresistible. Strangely, I discovered that going long enough sans the once-divine concoction now makes me recoil in revulsion. But again, am I losing out on loosening up, bonding and connecting in ways I wouldn’t be able to do now? Have I misplaced the ticket to belonging here? Is my temperance isolating me? Have I turned into just the background noise at my own party?
And then there’s the shameless inner, judgemental critic. Sneering at slurred speech and tales repeated ad nauseam; cringing at things I was once very much a part of until recently – all with pretentious, sober smugness.
Maybe this is about belonging and not drinking. About finding ways to connect without needing to alter my state of mind. Or perhaps I am yet to make peace with being on the outside of a popular and all-pervasive social script.
Whatever the case, for now, I’ll keep sipping my apple juice-Sprite cocktail. It’s not quite a drink. But it’s also not quite not. And maybe that’s where I live— a fence sitter with one foot in and the other out.
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