My Dance with Demon Rum

Remembering my final vodka

I don’t think of it as sobriety, just as I didn’t think of myself as an alcoholic. So marking two years without a drink doesn’t seem much to celebrate. Then why do I feel as proud as I do today?

Just as I vividly remember my final smoke, so I vividly remember my final vodka.

We had come through the Covid scare intact, but my family had missed our traditional Christmas gift-giving gathering. We finally got together to celebrate the holiday on Sunday, February 5, 2023.

It was dusk when I drove to my daughter’s house to join the others, and I remember driving up I-95 in Connecticut – speeding, really, because I was hankering for my end-of-day buzz.

At the same time, I was anxious because I did not want to drink that night, just as much as I wanted to.

Deep inside I had already surrendered to the notion that this was going to be another instance when one more of my innumerable resolutions to stop drinking would fail.

How many times had I promised myself – swore to myself – to eliminate booze?

And I did drink again that night. And driving home with two cups of coffee masking the several vodkas I’d downed, I resolved again to stop drinking.

When I filled in my calendar before bed that night, I wrote in “Last Drink.” With a question mark.

As it turns out, the question mark should have been an exclamation point. But as a professional writer, I’m allergic to exclamation points!

When my son-in-law was killed more than twenty years ago by a drunk driver, I wrote the eulogy I would offer at his funeral Mass. I was so angered by his undeserved death – leaving my daughter a widow – that I wanted to proclaim in the eulogy that I would never drink again, as a continuing memorial to him.

But I didn’t have the nerve to make that commitment.

Anyone who’s wakened to a hangover is familiar with the havoc alcohol wreaks on your body.

They didn’t name it “demon rum” for no reason. Doctors today tell us alcohol is nothing but poison with no redeeming physical or emotional value.

According to the World Health Organization, 2.6 million deaths annually are attributable to alcohol consumption.

Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, for example, intentionally drank himself to death at forty-seven because his Catholic faith prohibited outright suicide.

Along with the head-achy lethargy that comes with alcohol overindulgence is the need for carbs and fats. What’s better for a hangover stomach than huevos rancheros? Or maybe some cold pizza?

When I deleted alcohol two years ago, my hands stopped trembling. I was able to control my diet. With no morning misery, I was able to exercise. It added up to an eighty-pound weight loss.

I’m told I look like a different person. I certainly feel like one.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of life on the wagon is that there’s less chance of me causing emotional hurt to someone. As I look back over my life, I can say that whenever I’ve hurt someone – usually someone close who deserved only my love – it’s when I was drinking.

Author and poet Maya Angelou:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

I’m at the point where my relationship with alcohol is the same as with smoking, which I stopped in 1986. I no longer have physical cravings for either of the demons.

I can’t explain why.

But I can say this: You know you’re an alcoholic when your use of it causes you to violate your values, as was my case. There is no one-size-fits-all explanation or intervention, experts say, no universal truth here. Only gratitude!

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(Top image: Peter a year before sobriety. Bottom image: Peter a year after sobriety.)