Sobriety is not something you ever take for granted,  

I know this because I’m sober, for now anyways, and I hate the influence that alcohol has had on my life.  And the pull it maintains upon me today.

Any good time, almost every good time that I’ve had in my life, is associated with drinking.  Beer was my glue, my response to everything, the constant, the thing that tied everything else together.  

When I drank, I wasn’t a dirty drunk, a falling down drunk, a crash into the Christmas tree kind of drunk.  I never drank and then operated a motor vehicle.  I didn’t fight or slur my words.

I was happy.  I was content.  I was funny.  I was smart and articulate.  I could even work while I was drinking, pounding out policy papers, directing communications for serious enterprises, and playing prominent roles in election campaigns.  I taught for over thirty years.  My students over that span will attest to my commitment to them.

And I drank through all of it.  Maybe not every day, maybe not all day, but often enough.  And every time I “quit,” which is the word often employed when we actually mean “stopped,” I came back to it stronger than ever.  The cans got bigger and there were more of them.

The way it goes I guess.

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