Would you like something to drink?

 Sure.  An innocent question I ask or am asked quite frequently.  It is a social thing and accepted as harmless fodder in our day to day interactions with people.  Sure.  My drink of choice is water with ice.  An occasional soft drink on a hot day or a  big glass full of ice with tea goes good.  It has not always been that way.  Sadly I am one of those people for whom "a drink" means stay the hell away from anything that contains alcohol.  One drink is too many and a thousand not enough.

I learned very early on that if there was booze at the party it was not going to end well!  The boys in the crowd quickly learned that the best they would get out of me full of liquor was barfed on.  Dancing went out the window.  I became belligerent.  My first date with my first husband was spent with him holding my head while I wretched out the door of the car.  This was followed by me passing out and brother Jake taking me home, putting me fully clothed in the bathtub and throwing a blanket over me.  

I hated hangovers more than fried apples, which I loathe with every fiber of my being.  Every time I picked up a beer or mixed drink I told myself, "This time it will be different.  This time I will just have this one.  One.  Well, maybe one more."  And down the rabbit hole I went.  "90 miles an hour down a dead end street," so to speak.

I managed to function in my job because I limited my drinking to my days off from work.  I drank at home after the kids were safely in bed.  Since I was a single working mother with no child support I could not afford my habit.  Had anyone suggested AA I would have been offended.  Life has a funny way of putting us where we need to be at the time we need to be there and I am a prime example of that.

  My third husband brought me to Colorado and after about a year we divorced.  At that time I learned my first husband's brother was living in Pueblo with his wife.  Delvin and Nedra and I got together.  They were big on "AA" which is the acronym for Alcoholics Anonymous.  They attended meetings probably every day of the week and would swing by and share the "Big Book" lessons with me.  I explained to them that I was not an alcoholic because I did not drink.  He explained to me that being dry did not mean I was not an alcoholic.  I was one drink away.  And you know what?  He was right.

I would love to have a big red tomato beer.  Or a Pina Colada.  Or a Rum and coke. Or a fifth of rot gut whiskey and chase it with red Kool-Aid, but that is not going to happen.  I know myself enough to know that one drink is too many and a thousand are not enough.  I have overcome the nicotine addiction and put the cork in the bottle, so it is all down hill from here.  I just gotta' keep breathing, putting one foot in front of the other and some day the trumpet will sound and I will be out of here.  Keep my hand on the rudder and my eye on the prize.

Maintain.