I guess I’d better just lay off the alcohol. One beer, which I didn’t finish, and a bottle of red wine Nancy and I failed to finish, and still I got a headache and got sick. Maybe it is stress and tension or something else, but the common denominator is the booze.
I am a strictly social drinker. I enjoy bourbon and beer and sometimes wine, always with people and food and some occasion. I never have the inclination to drink while I’m by myself, despite having a stocked liquor cabinet and several bottles of wine and a few beers in the fridge. Melinda and Meredith kid me about how long a six-pack of beer lasts at our house—often several weeks.
So there I was last night having a great time, drinking quite moderately I thought, and still my head started throbbing and it got worse until I felt nauseous and didn’t stop until I’d emptied my stomach. Woodrow Wilson would love to discuss it with me at great length, and might even volunteer his personal stomach pump to assist me, at least if Joyce Carol Oates can be taken at her word about such matters.
It feels like a secret, getting sick after drinking, but it makes me wonder how many people have this secret—that they DON’T feel good from drinking, but do it as an addiction or like me, some sense of obligation, some idea that I will have a better time and relax or something…and the fact is I was relaxed and having a GREAT time until I started feeling the after-effects of the alcohol. I think at my age I may simply be feeling the effects of the poison in my system. I felt like my body was protecting itself from me.
I won’t turn into a teetotaler. That carries a lot of make-wrong and holier than thou. But I do think I had best take a look at this whole social drinking thing. I am pretty sure no one likes me better or wants to me with me more because I am drinking. Maybe it’s a lesson I can learn from my dad, whose steady drinking increased after retirement until it became a medical issue. I am living into the potential of my DNA… It is already written…I just have to find out what I’m like, who I am, and who my people are, from whom I am descended. I don’t know them! If I did as much research on my own family as Joyce Carol Oates does for ONE book, I would have a whole new view of my challenges and opportunities. It takes a whole life it seems just to find out who we really are and where we really came from. And then it is time to go.