The Mystery of the Empty Pitcher, More Reflections of Sobriety

Friday night I was at a sports bar eating a veggie burger and fries before going to a basketball game. I was seated at the end of a large communal table. At the other end of the table were two couples. About two-thirds of the way through my meal I noted that the pitcher of beer they were sharing had just been emptied. A few minutes later I noted that no one had gone to refill the pitcher, two of their glasses were empty, one was a third full and the other a quarter full. No one was moving on the beer situation. They were chatting and seemingly in good spirits. But the beer….

Yes, this was driving me crazy. I’ve not had a drop of alcohol in over 32 years but still can’t understand how people can let a beer pitcher remain empty and how people can nurse a drink — especially a beer -- seriously, nursing a beer?

I recently heard a co-worker say that she had met someone for a couple of drinks. I gathered from what she said and what I know of her that they literally had a couple — that is, two — drinks. And that was that. How?

If you’re in a position where you can have two drinks you can have infinity drinks and if you can have infinity drinks, why don’t you? I’m totally mystified by the way non-alcoholics “drink.” For the love of god they actually stop before they are blind drunk or passed out or incapable of lifting a glass. How?

Okay I’m guilty of a bit of hyperbole here. There were occasions during my drinking days when I had two beers or just a few glasses of wine with dinner. But these were exceptions. Especially towards the end of my drinking days when one led to two which lead to dozens. It only made sense to me. I’ve had many a conversation with others in recovery about the bizarre “drinking” habits that most people practice.

The truth is that I very well could go to a bar tonight and have just two drinks and come home and be fine. I might even get away with it a second night. But surely by the third (likely sooner) I’d be off and binging. How, you ask, can I be so sure? Believe me, I’m sure. I can feel it, not necessarily in my bones but coursing through my body. No doubt.

What if, you might ask, you could take a pill that would cure you of your alcoholism? Would you take it and would you then enjoy having just a couple of beers or glasses of wine? Answer: I might take the pill but I wouldn’t take the drinks. That’s over. There’s no point in going back there. Even if I knew that I would never take that third drink I couldn’t enjoy the first two. They would recall a bygone era that is important to always remember but only through memories and not through my taste buds and olfactory senses.

I’m very happy not to have any more alcohol. I had to go off coffee too because of my panic attacks and get my daily stimulus from my morning cup of English Breakfast Tea. Maybe two or three times a year I’ll have a second cup.

After 30 years of sobriety I braved drinking non-alcoholic beer. I’ve been very pleased to find NA beers to be refreshing and tasty and a real treat. But even here I am cautious. Except on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I have never had more than one a day and I rarely drink one on consecutive days. (Since I mentioned my favorite tea by name I will here mentioned that my favorite NA beer is St. Pauli.) I noted at the beginning that drinking an NA beer did not make me want to have a regular beer nor did it make me one to have more NA beers right away.

People occasionally point out that most NA beers do have a trace of alcohol in them. By my reckoning it would take about four to equal a regular beer and one regular beer is not enough to give one a buzz, so I am perfectly safe. If NA beers had given me a buzz when I first indulged I would have stopped forthwith. I was extremely cautious when I tried NA beers (as evidenced by the fact that I waited until I had 30 years of sobriety under my belt) and as noted from my previous comments I still am.

An NA beer provides the same taste and refreshment I enjoyed from my first couple of regular beers but without that nasty business of alcohol to cause havoc in my addictive brain.

I was quite fortunate to have gone to AA when I did. A few weeks after I got sober my wife informed me that she was pregnant with our first child. I was also just embarking on my teaching career. I was able to raise my children and teach without life being interrupted (and ultimately destroyed) by the ravages of alcohol. I can’t imagine ever trying to teach or hold a crying baby when in the throes of hangover.

Of course sobriety didn’t make me a good person or cure all my ills. However it has allowed me a path to navigate life and try to be a better person. Sobriety is never an end to itself, it is instead a means to enjoy one’s life. So far so good.

But I still can’t believe those people didn’t finish that goddamned pitcher.