Monday, June 1, 2009

May -- The Dryest Month of the Year. Well, THIS Year

I'm not the smartest guy going. I know this. Sometimes as soon as I say something, I immediately wish my words had a little string on the end of them, so I can pull them back in. (Never mind, the string on the end made me think of tampons and.....ew)

Anyway, my good friend Jeff was going to visit a brand new doctor in late April. Over our weekly breakfast, he tells me he wants to build good healthy habits, drop a few pounds and get reinvigorated. Sounded like a good idea to me.

So I made one of the dumbest suggestions. Ever.

"Well why don't we go on the wagon for the month of May," I said. "We'll give up drinking and try to build some good habits."

My egg-white ommelette tasted like crap that day, by the way. My mouth got dry, and not the way I like it to.

So we did. May came and we stopped drinking. A few days in Jeff asks "You meant getting drunk, right? Like we can have a couple of drinks, but no more getting tanked, for the month."

"Jeff," I began to reason with him with my new, clean mind. "if you're drinking you NEVER think you're tanked. Unless you've lost the feeling in your legs, and you'd probably blame that on your belt anyway."

Sure, drying out for a month sounds like a great idea. But picking THIS particular month didn't make much sense. Consider:

* May had five weekends. FIVE. That's like 10 percent of the weekends for the WHOLE year.
* I was invited to two birthday parties in May, including a 40th birthday barbecue. Ug.
* Mother's Day. Extended family time. I even babysat my two nieces for a whole day and didn't cave.
* Golf season. I'm not good when I'm focused. Lose a couple brain cells, lose a couple strokes.
* Memorial Day. I felt un-American by not honoring our fallen veterans by getting a little lubed up on imported beers.
* My next door neighbor Gloria died late in the month. I wanted to at least hoist a very cheap glass of read wine in her honor, but I settled on a few prayers.
* Baseball. I have about 18 lonely beers in my fridge. Every day another Met got hurt. It wasn't looking so good. I needed liquid company!

My cousin always goes dry in February. He says it's so he knows he CAN give it up for health reasons if someday he needed to. But, let's face it -- February is the softest month of the year. Shortest month, barely any sports (though the Super Bowl is now played in February, but still)

I didn't tell many people about this "experiment." Frankly, I got tired of hearing "YOU gave up DRINKING. For a MONTH!? Are you dying?"

Those who know both Jeff and I wondered who would crack first. We never even bet on it, we both decided to just do it, and believed we both could, so we never considered betting. Me not considering competing!! Can you believe it!

May came. May went. No alcoholic beverage touched my lips.

It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought. So what did I learn?

* Water is your friend. I feel like a freakin' fish I drank so many gallons of water;
* Hangovers suck. Most mornings I was rested, refreshed. It was weird. I almost liked it.
* Finishing something is way harder than starting it. The last week was hell. I think my Bombay Sapphire was literally calling my name. Oh, BS, I'll be there soon.
* My ADD is not solely attributable to Heineken. I still forgot stuff. Woo hoo! I think....
* Bars actually charge you to drink seltzer water? One place stuck me for $3.50. And no free refills!!! Hell for that kind of money, I should have been drinking a G&T at half the pace!
*Susan Boyle really is ugly. Drunk or sober.

So today is June 1. It's almost 2 p.m. No liquid lunch, no shakes, no hives (other than the one on the deck the bees built)

So cheers to me! Gifts of gin, Heineken mini-kegs and Advil are currently being accepted.

12 comments:

Jay Are said...

Well done, partner! Now, when do you wanna go see our favorite bartender? :)

Unknown said...

You Pansy - try giving it up for Lent every year. 31 days is week. I thought that giving it up for Lent was an Irish thing. No wonder they had the Easter Rising, it wasn't about freedom everyone was just so pissed off from being dry for 40 freakin' days.

Gianna said...

mmmmm... beeer....

Cee Bee said...

T-Mac and Jay Are: Way to Go! That took a LOT of will-power and I'm impressed. I once gave up drinking for a week while on a cleanse. Hmmm... not a good week for me. Although I think that was more about the lack of chocolate than anything else.

Irene - Listen, honey, do you really think Jesus gave up drinking for Lent? He can change water into wine, for God's sake. I don't think so!

TommyMac71 said...

I know Catholics...You give something up for Lent, then you make up some special dispensation. Give it a break....

TommyMac71 said...

and, by the way, St. Patrick's Day is in lent and there is NO WAY Irene Burns forgoes the funny juice on March 17. Please, I was born at night, but not LAST night

BigMaryCool said...

Gloria passed away? I'll hoist a glass of cheap wine in her order tonight, or at lunch, home with a sick little girl today. :(

I'm proud of you little bro.....

Dave S. said...

RIP Gloria.

As for Catholics and Lent, a friend of mine used to do that, then assert that Sundays (aka "after midnight Saturday night") were not part of Lent, nor was St. Patrick's Day. Even a Jesuit would look askance on that second one.

Suzy said...

I gave it up 6 years ago with a few relapses here and there. The hangovers were crippling and then when the doctor said if you drink alcohol and caffeine, you double the damage to your liver, I almost passed out. I chose caffeine but man do I miss alcohol!

Unknown said...

OF COURSE St. Patrick's Day all bets are off! It is the one and only exception to the rule and even my parents (uber Catholics that they are) won't argue that one....mostly because they know they'd lose. What can I tell you -we get away with eating meat if St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday. What further proof do you need that St. Patrick is really running the show up there.

Oh and way to go...yeah you...blah, blah, blah : )

Unknown said...

By the way, I miss giving you shit. When are we getting together?

: )

Blasé said...

Oh, Tampons! I was thinking they were Ear-Plugs.