One Wine (and two-thirds), Fun and Done

I pick my vices carefully. I have to. I have Lyme disease.

These days, to help combat illnesses borne from Lyme, I’ve become a health nut. I’ve eliminated all the sugary, fatty, unhealthy foods – the things that make them fun – to co-habitate with the disease. As a result, nearly all vices have been eliminated from my life, too. Fortunately, one I’ve always enjoyed I can still partake in – wine. So long as I limit it, alcohol can be consumed.

After years of various experiments with my wine threshold, I’ve learned one and a two-thirds glasses a day is my limit. For a while, I thought it was one drink, then one and three-quarters, then one and a quarter. For a while I tried two plus drinks and crashed (which made me wonder: what do I need over two freaking drinks a day for anyway?)

Recently, I ordered one glass of Sauvignon Blanc – my favorite variety – at a restaurant. Of course, my waitress didn’t know I had a one and two-thirds drink maximum. After nursing my cherished wine pour for almost an hour, the waitress continued to ask if I wanted another drink. I was so tempted to say, “If only you knew me, what I can’t eat, what I shouldn’t do and the sacrifices I make to maintain my health. If only you knew how this drink you served me, this teeny, tiny, little ol’ four ounce drink, is SO PRECIOUS. I mean, look at that guy at the end of the bar. What? He’s on his third martini now? He’s so lucky.” (Or is he?)

My memoir, Maybe Boomer, covers my path of pain and confusion living with Lyme. I’ve lived with it for forty years. Among many things, Maybe Boomer is a story of survival to be the best I can while living with a never-ending daily nemesis. You can read more about it in the introduction to Chapter 13, “Health,” from Maybe Boomer.

Next week, I’m going to visit California wine country for my very first time. I wonder how many wine-tasting sips it takes to make one and two-thirds drinks?

The Sweet, Sweet, Sweet Temptation of Alcohol

As I walk through the liquor department, I spot an eight-year-old boy gazing into the big display box filled with hundreds of honey and whiskey-based Yukon Gold 100% alcohol miniatures. His eyes are lit with interest. He can’t hold back temptation any longer and reaches his hands into the box. Mm-m, sweet honey taste. Warm colors. Shiny playthings. Perhaps he remembers the last time he was at the mall and jumped into the play pit containing thousands of soft, plastic, multicolored balls and how much fun it was to be totally surrounded by them!

“Hey! Get yer hands out of there,” the boy’s father exclaimed. “What are you doing playing with those?”

The boy’s testy papa continues to shop, walking the last aisle near the back of the department as a manly silhouette against a wall of alcohol ads and signs. His son meanders other aisles, enjoying the three-dimensional liquor store world of amazing colors and shapes.

Looking at a beer poster of young males socializing with brews in hand, I think back to the first time I had a drink. I didn’t have it until after I’d graduated college. I lasted that long because of how incredibly stupid and violent people became after they drank. Their changed behaviors made me wonder if I, too, might go into a similar la-la land after drinking. (Read more about my college temptation and ultimate abstinence from drinking in “Excerpts” and the passage in Chapter 1, “Competition,” from my memoir, Maybe Boomer.)

Then, after I graduated college and went on to teach high school in the 80’s and 90’s, I heard stories about my young student’s crazed, self-destructive weekend behavior from drinking. Their tales sounded much like what I saw in my college dorms. In fact, I heard hushed accounts about how many of my students started drinking in middle school, even earlier.

My hazy recollections are interrupted by the PA system: “Assistance needed in the toy department, aisle nine.” Uh-oh, has the boy gotten into trouble over there?

I notice the father round the corner toward the checkout desk, arms filled with his chosen liquor fare, when I see the boy gazing into the colorful Yukon Jack display yet again. I can tell he’d like to have one of those toy miniatures as a souvenir, but knows better than to ask.

As the two walk out the department past the ten-foot tall beer displays, I imagine a scene of the boy driving home past billboards, many plastered with images of movie stars, celebrities, pretty women – even the boy’s favorite sports stars – all enjoying their favorite alcoholic drink. He’ll see them again on TV and in the magazines lying around the house when he gets home.

The little boy couldn’t be more surrounded by alcohol temptation than swimming in the case of Yukon Jack miniatures themselves.