thinking about drinking

I'm not sure we tell the truth when we're drunk - but given the fact, we usually lie when we're sober, who's to say that alcohol can't be some low-cost truth serum alternative, some simple answer to a deep craving for more honest living?

I think I'm trying to talk myself into drinking beer here. It does seem a waste to fly all the way to Germany and not try their world-famous draft.

However, drunkeness isn't the great escape it used to be for me. When I think of swallowing that honest poison, it makes me want to vomit, all I can think of is what comes afterwards, when I'm laying in bed alone, dejected, hung-over, nauseated, feeling like the day will go to waste, and hating so many things about my life. Now my great escape is sobriety; it saves me from the morning after.

At the same time, it is the opposite of escape because it forces me to wrestle my thoughts head on. It's like fighting the bull without the help of lances or banderillas. Sobriety allows me to see my circumstances clearly - not that it always makes me completely aware but it's certainly better than when I'm swimming in an alcohol dream.

I'm always juiced for idealism when I'm drunk; all I see is what I want to see, a simpler world where there's so much to love and nothing to fear. Six bottles in, I don't think twice about putting my arm around a total stranger and sharing my sentimental thoughts, I never hesitate to tell people I love them and I always mean it with a sincerity that would sicken the world-weary cynic in me. I like myself that way. But crashing from it is just so disappointing and my new goal is having real courage and optimism, not the liquid kind.

Drunk is easy. Facing the real world, removing the beer goggles and seeing it with naked eyes is harder but it ought to be my norm, surviving that, my quest, living it, my truth.

If only sober were as easy as drunk. I suppose the benefits are in the hardship and I really want that champion's prize: becoming a man who lives honestly and joyfully without having to chemically influence myself into it - and without the added weight of a beer gut.