Romanticizing Alcohol
My twenties marked an era of drunken romanticism that some people never escape from. Nearly every selfie I took during that decade was with a glass of wine in hand. My identity was Wino, and I was proud of it.
And why wouldn't I love being a drunk? After all, alcohol made me feel good. It made me forget. It helped me overcome my social anxiety. What was bad about that?
Turns out, depending on alcohol to feel good, to numb yourself to the world, and to socialize with other human beings is not only unhealthy but incredibly dangerous.
Being a Wino wasn’t romantic, it just helped me hide from the world and from myself for a very long time.
As soon as orange wine made its first big splash in Los Angeles, opening the world up to natural wine, I hopped on some self-identified Sommelier bandwagon. I claimed that my taste in alcohol was superior to those who picked up a bottle from the grocery store.
For a decade, I worked in bars and restaurants. I became an expert in selling the alcohol I was drinking. My customers loved my attention and wanted to buy more alcohol, hoping to drink some of it with me. More often than not, I indulged them.
My Tumblr page (RIP) consisted of dreary book quotes interwoven by photos of beautiful women drinking/spilling alcohol.
I made drinking look fun.
I drew a lot of people into my life based on this boozy persona. Many people I love and hang out with still drink in a way I know I no longer can. It isn’t sustainable, to me or them, and I feel a growing resentment bubbling inside me any time I am around them. Do they still find it to be a romantic activity?
The life I have built is still tied to this idea of the Romantic Alcoholic.
In this infantile stage of sobriety, I barely know how to eat, sleep, or write without booze flowing through my veins. And now I have some kind of sober internet persona that people find just as romantic, which I suppose is preferred over the former.
I receive countless messages thanking me for bravely naming the addiction, which I am always blown away by. I also get messages requesting advice on how to stop. How to transition. What to do. I don’t feel equipped to answer.
But I try. I am still figuring it out! All I can do is share my experience.
And I can say confidently that being an alcoholic is not romantic. It is not something to aspire to. It isn’t a life I want.
It is constantly saying no to any given situation. It is learning over and over again that life was hard with booze and is still hard without it, you just can’t numb yourself to it anymore.