We Can’t Go Back Now!
New Year’s Eve was always a reason to celebrate, and my dad knew that if I’d been at home, I would have been drinking somewhere. So he truly believed he was helping me by ordering those two pints at the British pub. He thought we’d have some bonding time, a real daddy-daughter experience, right in the heart of London-proper on one of the biggest nights of the year.
I felt conflicted. Part of me wanted to drink more than anything in the world. The other part really, really didn’t want to drink with my dad. My parents never drank when I was growing up; this was something I did independently, knowing it was frowned upon by my family’s upper echelon. I wasn’t sure how to go about drinking with my dad – but the desire for alcohol beat down that thinking pretty quick.
Two gulps in and my brain sighed with calm. I felt that familiar pleasant buzz.
I tried to sip my pint of “lager” the way my dad did, but my dad drank so slowly! My beer was gone before he was even half done with his.
“You don’t drink very fast,” I said.
“Do you want another one?” he asked. He flagged down a guy with a tray, who brought me another pint. By the time my dad was done with his first, I was done with my second.
I was ready for my third.
Dad said, “This was fun! We’ve got a flight to catch in the morning, so let’s head back to the hotel now.”
It wasn’t even 10:00. On New Year’s Eve.
My thoughts raced, screaming: I’m not even drunk yet! The new year doesn’t even start until midnight! I thought we were going OUT! Two beers??! Why would anyone drink two beers??! I drink more than that just to get ready to go out! I want to stay at the pub! I HAVE to stay at this pub!
My dad cutting me off after two beers felt like a severe punishment, and I had no idea what I’d done to deserve it. Hadn’t I sat quietly enough in the bar? Hadn’t I tried to sip slowly? Was the beer too expensive here? What if I offered to pay? Could my dad could go back to the hotel and come and get me later?
I wanted to be screaming with the throngs in Trafalgar Square!
Really, I just plain wanted to scream.
“We can’t go back now!” I tried. “We just got here!”
“We’ve got to leave at 8 a.m.” my dad explained. “We’re going to France! We’ve got to get some sleep so we don’t miss our flight.”
Non-alcoholics don’t generally understand the “phenomenon of craving” in the alcoholic, since non-alcoholics literally don’t have it.
But I have it in spades. One drop of alcohol in my system makes my entire being – soul, body and mind – beg for more, as though my very survival depends upon it.
And I’d had two whole beers. I wanted to keep drinking – as I usually did – until I passed out.
“Okay,” I told my dad. What choice did I have?
My manipulative mind was racing when I remembered the tiny bottles of alcohol I’d seen in our hotel room. Surely no one would know if I took a couple of those when we got back to the hotel.
Whew. I felt slight mental relief.
Then I sulked as we made our way through crowds of ecstatic celebrators doing exactly what they wanted to do … as I was dragged away from all the excitement so I could “sleep.”