i’ve been alcohol-free for one year, one month, three weeks, and two days.
in target yesterday there was a spill - someone had shattered a bottle of red wine. i lingered in the aisle adjacent to the mess while an employee crouched, covering the red with white cleaning powder. the smell overtook me - i pictured myself in my narrow kitchen with a glass of wine, cooking, and felt sad: i miss drinking. i miss being able to have a glass of red wine while making dinner. i miss going to the bar after a show to have a miller high life with friends. i miss champagne toasts on new years. i miss the casual ritual of alcohol.
but cooking with a glass of wine is never cooking with a glass of wine for an alcoholic. the glass of wine transforms into a bottle of wine, transforms into shots, transforms into teary nervous breakdowns, into emotional raging at loved ones. i more often than not drank until i was just a body, no trace of consciousness, when my intention was a casual drink on what was meant to be an inconsequential evening.
so the sad, sinking feeling when i smell alcohol isn’t quite “missing” - i know my life is better without alcohol. i don’t miss it. but there is a thirst, a yearning - that things could be different, that i could be different. a desperate wishing that i was the type of person who could have one (just one) glass of wine while cooking.