The one where I got drunk in Ireland after eight months off the bottle

I can hold my liquor.

In 2010 I met a girl at a MeetUp event. I bought her a drink, which led to another. We drank together for more than three years before we went our separate ways.

I didn’t let the break up get in the way of the drinking, though. Momentum is a powerful force. I drank my way through a significant piece of the Atlanta dating pool and into my second marriage.

In January 2023, I quit — cold turkey.

In January, my son quit drinking. We socialize together and I wanted to be supportive, so I decided to take a week off. After a few weeks I declared that I was done drinking, too. After several months I began to believe it. I didn’t drink for nearly 8 months.

In September, I traveled from London to Dublin.

After a long day that included sitting on the tarmac in a small plane for three hours before taking off, I arrived at my Dublin hotel shortly before seven. At check-in, the clerk pointed out that the hostel was hosting a stand up comedy show, which would start in a few minutes. I like stand up and I was bedraggled from the long frustrating day of travel. I popped by my room and was back in the bar a few minutes early.

When I asked the bartender for something “fruity, fizzy and non-alcoholic,” he looked at me like I had slapped him and said “You’re in Ireland!” “Fuck it,” I thought, “I’ll have a pint.” I had no intention of drinking the whole pint. Since January, I had tasted plenty of drinks that other people were having, but never more than a tiny sip. I was going to nurse this pint. I figured I would have a few sips over the course of the show. I overestimated my resolve.

The first pint was so cold and delicious that it didn’t last as long as the emcee’s opening remarks. The alcohol coated my system like cough syrup coats a spoon, it seeped into me, spreading slowly from my tongue to my throat and into my head, my hands and my feet. The answer to the bartender’s obvious question was automatic. Of course I wanted another pint. Beer is delicious. I blame the rest on the alcohol.

The role of old drunk guy hanging out with the younger crowd will be played by Mr. Sheen’s understudy.

By the time the show was over, I had two pints, two margaritas and was working on a third. I was the life of the party. I was two decades older than everyone else at the hostel. We were laughing and telling stories and having a ball. It was like old times.

Yada yada yada, I ended up in my room.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I had slept fully clothed, on top of the covers with my luggage and computer on the bed. I brushed my teeth three times and took a handful of ibuprofen. Coffee tasted like oil with mud stirred into it and water wasn’t all that much better. I spent the day trudging around Dublin in a cold fog, both inside and out. I wasn’t upset with myself and I didn’t feel guilty, but I kind of was and I sort of did.

60 days later, I am back on the wagon.

I haven’t had another drink since Dublin. I have learned a lot about myself since I quit drinking. The most important thing is that drinking is a package, and it comes with costs and benefits, like everything else. When I drink, I get sensations I like — taste, smell, warmth, the spread of the poison in my body. I feel like the life of the party. But that’s not all. Your showcase also comes with tons of calories and the aftereffects.

Like choosing a romantic partner, the good is inseparable from the bad. Since I quit drinking, I have lost fifty pounds, I am back in the gym and I am writing every day. Giving up the nightly cocktails was the boost I needed to leave a beautiful, comfortable plateau and start striving again. I don’t want to go back to my old routine. But maybe next time I’m in Dublin…