Giving myself permission to drink
Drinking has been my avocation for years. Most of my life I’ve been able to keep it a sideline. I don’t remember my first drink, although I do remember the first time I got drunk. I was 15, and the beverage of choice was Double Jack “wine” behind Larry’s confectionery in Regina. In high school my friends and I drank on weekends, and at around 17 I started sneaking into bars. But booze didn’t play a huge role in my life; it was present but I didn’t crave it.
There have been three distinct periods when drinking morphed from entertainment to more of a calling. The first was my first two years of college living in residence. This requires no explanation. The second period was for about three years in my twenties when I was working as a social worker in child welfare, a job for which I was so ill suited I looked to alcohol to mitigate the anxiety. I was also lonely; booze was supposed to fill the hole but it was a lousy stand-in for love and companionship. And lastly, when my older daughter hit 14 and began acting out in a multitude of ways. This is when I had the crazy notion that I deserved a drink.
A family legacy
I recall that my own mother began drinking significantly more when my two sisters and I hit adolescence — as a teen, I certainly gave her enough anxious moments. Her drinking took off from there after her marriage to my dad ended. And her own dad was an alcoholic, or at the very least a problem drinker. Alcohol? It was hands-down my drug of choice, as it had been for those who came before me.
In my forties, I started giving myself permission to drink under conditions I never had before. It crept up on me…. I had a glass of wine at lunches out whether my companion did or not. I had one resting on the vanity as I got ready to go out for the evening. I’d have a couple of glasses of wine with my husband, Terry, at supper, then tip back another good-sized glass while he was out walking the dog. I was head over heels for the wine that continued into the night at a dinner party, the bottle resting on the table, the conversation flowing as well. And then I’d think, How about one more splash after the guests leave as I do the dishes? My drinking became more concerted than ever as I thought about how I could summon that next one into being.
