Like many of my guy friends, I never met a beer that I didn't like. No
confrontational personalities, no unwelcome discussions of politics or
religion. Beer is generally friendly, comforting, and it has alcohol in it. We
all know that alcohol is good as an antiseptic before or after an event. I
figure the best way to use it is internally, as a proactive line of defense
against all kinds of evil parasites and germs. I'm just trying to be practical
here. So beer and I have been good friends since we used to hook up in college,
driving from a dry county in North Alabama to a wet one in Tennessee, just to
be together. But, unlike my friend Mike, I do have a few conditions.
You see,
Mike and I were out in the middle of a parking lot one particularly scorching
summer day here in Florida. The asphalt was starting to melt and grab our
shoes. And there in that desert sat Mike's old junker resting on three wheels.
The right rear was a rubber pancake and we needed to make it work so we could
get the hell out of there before we melted too. Mike opened the trunk, leaned
in, and did his impression of a dog digging a hole. Stuff flew out behind him
as he threw out junk that had been hitch-hiking along in there forever.
Somewhat surprised, he found a spare and it wasn't flat. But there was
something else too. Rolling around on the inside of the tire, bouncing from
side to side for the last 60,000 miles or so, was a very dirty can of Old
Milwaukee Beer. An unopened can, a hot, very shaken can. Without hesitation,
Mike yelled: “Look, my second favorite kind of beer!” he grabbed the beer with
a rag in his hand in case it was too hot to handle directly, popped the top,
threw it back in a slurping power chug that he had perfected many years before,
and drained it. Hot foam dripped from his chin. He immediately put the can on
the ground and with one definitive stomp, flattened it like the tire on his
right rear. A huge belch punctuated the coup de grace. Turning back to the business
at hand I said: “OK, I'll bite, what's your favorite kind of beer?” He
confirmed my suspensions with his answer: “Cold beer!”
So although I admit that I won't drink Mike's second favorite kind of beer, all
others are fair game and have stood with me through all the chapters of my
life. In my bachelor years, we considered beer to be a balanced meal. We would
no more forget the cooler when going on an outing than we would forget to wear
pants. And sometimes, the beer would cause us to not wear pants. But I've never
gotten a ticket, had a beer on the job, or ever had any problem with beer,
until recently.
These days I've got a beer gut that won't go away, and putting my time in at
the gym every other morning isn't enough to fix that by itself. I need to stop
drinking beer at night, or at least cut back. And that's easier said than done.
Now I never have a beer until I've completed my “to do” list when I'm not
working or until after work when I am. Then I get the reward. But I know that
the nightly calories are no longer burned off the way they were when I was
younger. Most nights I think like a cigarette smoker...I'll quit tomorrow.
Yesterday afternoon I thought maybe it was the elusive “tomorrow” and I did
something different to break the cycle. I Googled Alcohol Anonymous found
a meeting a few blocks away, and went to my first ever AA meeting. Curious, I
thought that I could pick up a few tips on how to incorporate beer free nights
into my lifestyle.
The parking lot was full and some members were walking in from cars parked more
than a block away. An informal gathering of tables and chairs preceded the
coffee and doughnuts in the back. Order was called and one of the men read the
creed from a printed script encased in a laminate cover, opaque and scratched by
the wear of a thousand hands. He looked down and mumbled through the words that it appeared that everyone in the room knew by heart, except for me. And I was unable to hear
anything the guy said. The next order of business was for the new people (me)
to tell everyone just why I was there. “Well, I'm off work today and after I
completed all my chores, I happened to see a note about this meeting on my
Facebook page and as I was driving to the liquor store for beer, I simply
stopped here first out of curiosity because I like beer and it makes me fat and
I am looking for some tips on how to cut back.” Knowing looks accompanied a
large verbal welcome from everyone in the room.
Then we got the stories from the AA veterans. A nervous young guy recently out
of the slammer and unable to exercise any self-restraint to stay that way, was up first. The
once successful business owner who drank himself out of a marriage and into a
lonely bankruptcy. The woman who had been in an abusive relationship where the
only thing that she and her ex had in common was alcohol. On and on. Bad
stories, ruined lives, very often, the wrong side of the law. Alcohol
fueled train wrecks for lives. But they seemed to know each other and they
counted on each other for support. Most liked the camaraderie and all were in
total agreement on one thing: No alcohol, zero tolerance. Each new story had me
thinking, “Wow. that’s some seriously bad stuff!” And I kept remembering that I
had never had any troubles like that. In fact, I had always been successful as
a father, husband, employee or boss, and as a human being. I had never known an
alcohol related problem other than around my waist. I just liked beer and it
made me fat.
Finally, we wrapped up the meeting with some awkward group hugs and an even
more uncomfortable circle of hand holding while reciting the Lord's prayer. I squirm at the thought of holding other men's hands or feigned belief in Santa Claus. Oh,
but that unpleasantness was after they gave me my first “chip” to mark day one of my sobriety.
All in all, it was a learning experience. I learned that alcohol was an undeniably a huge problem for the people in that room, as was daily life itself, I suspect. Feeling
considerably better about my own situation, I drove straight to the liquor store to get
the supplies I needed to properly celebrate my new- found sobriety I kept
thinking to myself: “What's a few extra pounds anyway?” I mean it's not like
I'm an alcoholic or something.
