Please Enjoy Responsibly

        I love IPA’s. Not only for their flavor but also for their names. Nothing makes you feel like a badass space God quite like drinking a beverage with ingredients named “Cashmere, Apollo, and Calypso”. I think the single thing I don’t love about them is the number of calories. I’m so thankful they don’t list that information on the side of the can because that would kill my Goddess vibes for sure. The old me would be shocked to know about my love of craft beer. I used to hate alcohol, but not because of the calories.

               The old me would not only be shocked but horrified. She is resolutely against drinking, thank you very much. It only causes pain. She knows that drinking changes people. She would be afraid, just waiting for the violence to break out. She has seen alcohol seep into the very core of a person, marinate there and then destroy that person. Mostly her parents. She has seen them scream, hit, chase, demean, mock, and terrorize. Alcohol always breaks a person. It can be a mental break or a physical break, but it always happens.

               In high school when all my friends were partying, I wasn’t really interested. I was so uncomfortable around drinking. I had been traumatized by my past experiences with my parents and their unhealthy relationship with alcohol. I’d be on edge the entire night. Doing my best to keep an anxiety attack at bay, my heartrate skyrocketing each time someone got loud or rowdy. I would wait for the moment, the moment when the switch is flipped, and the night descends into violence. A deadly game of “don’t poke the bear”, except the bear is belligerently drunk and might kill you. The bear won’t remember it tomorrow, won’t even be sorry. It will be your fault, because it’s a bear after all, and you should know better than to get in the way of a drunk bear. I can’t tell you how many 911 calls I made as a child. So terrified. Hiding in my closet pleading with the dispatch to “please hurry, he’s been drinking all day. I think he’s going to kill her!”.

               I left after I graduated high school. I felt immense relief and guilt all at the same time. Relieved to be away from the violence, guilty that I wasn’t there to protect my mother. I moved in with my boyfriend of eight months. It was a small two-bedroom house with a jack and jill bathroom that we shared with another couple. My mom was devasted that I moved out, but I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t live in an environment where every loud noise, every bump in the night, every time it was too quiet for too long would send me spiraling. Too afraid to leave my room and see what was happening, too afraid to move. I was frozen with fear, in a constate state of fight, flight or freeze and it was killing me.

               Of course, there was still drinking in the new house, we were a bunch of college kids living together so don’t let me fool you. The new environment didn’t tame my fear of alcohol though, I was nervous. My boyfriend knew of my past experiences with alcohol, and he had witnessed firsthand how out of control my family could get. He promised me that it was different now. I was hesitant to believe that. I remember the first time I witnessed responsible consumption of alcohol. My boyfriend and his culinary school buddies stopped at our house over lunch. They were all chatting, eating, and enjoying a beer. I was upset. How can they drink in the middle of the day? Don’t they have to go back to class? Why would they want to risk getting belligerent before heading back to class? To my surprise everyone consumed exactly one beer, ate their lunch, and peacefully left my house to go back to school. I was kind of confused. This is too good to be true, people drinking and then being able to stop? I didn’t know you could do that.

               My nervousness slowly turned into skeptical optimism. It was Halloween and my boyfriend and roommates wanted to have a party. I imagined an all-out battle between drunk mummies and vampires, a zombie referee almost too blacked out themselves to be of any help. No make up needed because those black eyes would be real. My friends reassured me that wouldn’t be the case. I found myself in the middle of a Halloween party I was partly hosting, and I was enjoying myself. I couldn’t recall a single moment in my entire life when I was in an environment where alcohol was present, and I was relaxed enough to enjoy myself. I was having fun even.

               My boyfriend was having fun too. He was trying to play fight with me. You know the fake boxing number, bouncing around from side to side, throwing out a little “bop, bop” with a play punch. I was laughing while crying out for him to stop. I must have given him a look that made him think I was starting to get afraid. He immediately stopped playing, scooped me up in his arms, and profusely apologized. I wasn’t afraid but at that moment he unlocked something inside of me. He made me realize that you can drink alcohol and still care about a person and if you’re hurting them or not. You can drink alcohol and still control your actions. You can drink alcohol and still be the same person.

               That was the beginning of the new me, the happy me. The me who is not afraid of alcohol. I had demonized alcohol so much growing up that it was a hard realization that you can consume it responsibly and even enjoyably. My parents gave me countless examples of what not to do, how to abuse alcohol and each other. My friends gave me examples of making good choices, being responsible about your alcohol consumption and taking accountability for your actions. I don’t hate my parents for how I grew up. In fact, I think in a messed-up way I am grateful for the experiences they gave me. I am wise, grounded, and I know how fucked up things can become if you let them, and I won’t let them.