No More Beer

I don’t exactly remember the first time I ever had a beer.  I think it was at a Bears game with my Uncle’s Dan and John in the parking lot tailgating.  I maybe was all of twelve or thirteen.  I thought it tasted like pure gasoline and after two sips my Uncle Dan assured me, “Don’t worry you will develop a taste for it.”  I would come to learn later in life that he was right.

Being a teenager in the suburbs drinking alcohol is quite literally a rite of passage.  I flirted with drinking here and there while in high school but the heavy 12 ounce curls didn’t really start until the Moraine and Kmart years.  I’ve often said, it wasn’t a matter of if we were going to a party on a Friday or Saturday night, it was which one are we going to go attend.

Weather it was drinking Stroh’s cans in Dell’s basement or Busch Light Draft in the Kmart parking lot I soon found my Uncle was right, I no longer was drinking beer to be cool or fit in.  I was drinking it because I had acquired a taste. 

The plus to drinking was that alcohol lowered inhibitions.  I found I had more confidence and would definitely do things tipsy that I would not do sober.  When I got to DePaul a whole new world of bars and adventures opened up to me all thanks to alcohol.  And I mean this when I say it I don’t regret any of it.

My twenties are quite literally a blur of sprits induced haziness.  I played softball, after the games we drank.  Nothing going on tonight, let’s go on a pub crawl.  What it’s Tuesday and I have to be at work at eight in the morning, better only have a couple of Budweiser’s.  I had so many good times then and so many stories that start out with, I was hammered.

As I turned into my thirties of course I started to slow down my consumption but still kept the habit up on weekends.  I was the definition of a social drinker.  When I went out with my friends I would always knock back a couple.  But, the times where I was getting knock down, blacked out drunk were thankfully becoming rare. 

I still would do my 95^th street march with my friends and knock back as many Miller High Life’s as I could when out with the gang.  The side effect to all that beer was my gut was growing and soon I had a pretty substantial spare tire around my mid section.  Now, I don’t want to solely blame beer for it, I mean I still ate like shit and my exercise was minimal at best.  But, the beer intake certainly was not helping. 

I associated drinking with good times and won’t say anything bad about them.  I am not going to become one of these ex-beer drinkers that become a crusader for all the ills of alcohol.  But, now that it has nearly been six months without a sip of it, I must say I don’t miss it in the least.  As a matter of fact, I am repulsed by the idea of drinking a beer.

I started to go on my weight loss regimen in September.  At that point I was still drinking beer, hanging out at the Castle on Sundays watching football and knocking back a lot of High Life’s in the process.  As I started losing weight and eating better the more I drank beer the more it just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.  Then I started to think about why I still drank?

What was it about beer that had its grips on me?  I mean I was in no way abusing it or anything like that.  Sure, I liked it but I am not sure I loved it.  So, as the new year approached I said to myself, I am going to see how long I can go without consuming alcohol and beer in particular.  I wanted to see if I would miss it or not.  And as I said I simply don’t.

Now when I am around drunken imbeciles of which I played that part many times, I get repulsed.  I think to myself, did I used to act like that?  When I see a sloppy, slurring his words rummy, I get all the validation I need that I am perfectly good not drinking.  It is such a turn off to me now. Again, this is not a judgment.  If someone wants to drink it is their right and live and let live, I say.  I just don’t have the desire anymore.  At this point in time in my life I don’t miss it and don’t crave a beer.

Maybe, it is my whole training, getting in shape regimen that I am on.  Maybe eventually I will have a rough day and I will just want to drown my sorrows away in a drunken stupor like I used to, I will never say never.  But as of today in my current mind frame I really don’t want to drink anymore.  I think I am more addicted to Twizzlers and ice cream then beer anyways.  If I have to give up something for me at least , it is much easier to abstain from the occasional oat soda then a scoop from Premo’s or the Plush Horse.