Picking Your Poison

The infamous wedding. 2021

My husband doesn’t drink alcohol. His goto is freshly squeezed orange juice and diluted fruit punch. Like a seven-year-old. He doesn’t enjoy the stiff scotch, or a glass of wine at the end of the day. I do. But this is about his drinking, not mine. 

As I approached adulthood, I found myself on what I thought was a doom cycle into alcoholism and addiction. I wanted to stop what had quickly become a daily grind, but couldn’t. I joined AA at 16 because they welcomed, understood and embraced me. It was a framework to a morality and a way to be in the world I’d been craving. In the same way I threw myself into drinking, I became a coin carrying, sober member of AA for the next 14 years. 

Again, this is about his drinking or lack thereof, not mine. All this is to say, it went into his pro column that he didn’t drink when I met him. I didn’t either.

Then, you know, life happened and kids and it turned out maybe it was more a need to belong, than a disease for me. I grew up. My life was full and not the sad lonely chasm of my childhood, and I haven’t seemed to find myself back across that line into problem drinking. Mostly. 

Again, not my point. My point is that my husband still doesn’t drink, and besides a few of the people who love and know him best, many get on a mission to turn his mocktail to cocktail. 

He says he doesn’t like the taste. I get that. I don’t like peach lavender iced tea. He has, however eaten his way through every fast food joint west coast and east. To each his own.

The thing is, alcohol seems to spark a strong need for company in some people. It pushes many of us back to that bullying peer pressure of the school yard. At least those of us of a certain age.

“No thank you,” he’ll start. 

“You sure? Nothing?”

Helpless, he looks to me to answer, and I can only shrug. 

He doesn’t like to say no to anyone. An Old School people pleaser, he occasionally pretends to sip in order to avoid the persuasion it takes to say no. He often passes those drinks off to me and I’m happy to oblige. Although not so much since a monumental, close-to-us wedding where the bride’s father handed out shots of something I later learned was called, “Poison.” 

At my table, my sixteen-year-old, my mother-in-law (another non-drinker), and my husband sat enjoying the party and the many times pandemic postponed wedding. Tasty, I thought as I took the shots one by one. In my defense, what choice did I have? 

At least it was following the ceremony, which was lovely. The rest of it is a story that has since become family legend involving a fall into a fountain. One I can neither confirm nor deny. I remember their love, some dancing, the twinkling lights in the trees. And I learned a hard lesson that night. Never drink too much of someone else's poison. 

Again, not about me.

My husband is content to hang out inside himself, no additional anything required. There is no need to take his disinterest in mood altering of any kind, as a challenge. It’s a gift to be fully self soothing. 

Also, they don’t see him sit in front of his array of monitors, underneath the spell of his frantic engineering, often foregoing sleep. Days can go by and he is still in its grip. It does make him appear stoned, but I know better, even if I do have to look for proof of life every few hours. And actually, he gets paid for this indulgence.

I heard the famous film director, Ron Howard, say that his hobby was making movies and he wasn’t interested in much else. One person’s work is another person’s vice. When you’re lucky, those things collide. And then, you don’t need to drink.

I’m not so fortunate with my calling. Writing has me tromping on the grapes of my own misery in order to ferment something entertaining. And then, I need a drink.

In a cafe in Amsterdam, while I perused the legal cannabis menu, the tattooed girl behind the counter tried to convert him. In her defense it was Amsterdam. How could she know that we really just came for the canals, the Rembrandts, the Vermeers and Anne Frank? I tried to tell her it was futile. 

She rubbed her hands, shifted her weight foot to foot, warming to the challenge. “A brownie? A honey stick for your tea?”

I pointed over her shoulder to the sealed orange juice container. “He’ll take one of those.” I saw a line of muffins just below the jars of green buds. “And one of those. Assuming they’re not fairy dusted.”

“I can get you something very light,” she said to him.

“I’ll take that,” I said pointing to the menu of marijuana. I saw where this was going. “He’s a lost cause.”

She did as I asked, but whispered as I left, “I put some cookies in the bag. Just in case.” Could it be that no one ever goes into one of Amsterdam’s famous cafes for pastry? 

I’m not complaining. More for me. Does it bother me that we never fight over who is going to drive and who gets to indulge? No. Do not underestimate the benefits of having a perpetually sober human being in your world. Especially when you’re raising children. Unless he’s on a deadline, of course.

Sometimes he pretends to drink to avoid the conversation, and might bond with you over that IPA with his miniscule knowledge, but he won’t take an actual sip. He went on an entire wine tour of Portugal without most people noticing that I was drinking for two.

My guy is a people pleaser, but he also holds his own counsel, caring more that he doesn’t anger you than that you like him. Which I admit is an odd way to move through the world, but ironically makes him super likable. 

He has a colleague from overseas who can’t wait to go bar hopping with him, because he may or may not have implied that he enjoys a pint after work. No matter how many times I tell him these pretenses are unnecessary and bite him in the ass, he takes whatever Google tells him, and spits it back in order to “relate.”

“The guy lived thousands of miles away,” he reasoned, until they proclaimed the team meeting to happen in New York. Suddenly, his friend will be here soon. And he’ll want to go drinking with his buddy, who just told him about the fragrant wines of Portugal.

He goes over the snippets of things he’s learned. Nose first. Nice legs. Full bodied. Oak casks. 

“Tell him you’re on medication!” I suggest, trying to be helpful.

“What kind?” he asks.

“Allergies? Angina? Diabetes? It doesn’t matter,” I shrug. 

He shakes his head. “I don’t want him to think I’m sick.”

“Tell him you’re in recovery,” I say. “That you’re an angry drinker.”

“Those are my choices?” he asks. “An out of control drunk or half in the ground?”

Those are the people who don’t drink! I want to scream. Instead, I put his cup of sparkling lemonade in the sink. 

“Tell him I’m sick,” I say. “Tell him I have Covid.”

His eyes light up and he kisses me. “You are brilliant!” 

Here’s where I’d like to remind you that this is not about me, only has that ship sailed, and it seems to be in open water, getting ready for cocktail hour. Anyone want to meet for drinks?