rules and suggestions for relapsing
by Keith Powell
Do Rationalize.
Fixate on this question: how much was some flaw in you, and how much was a toxic cocktail of place and crowd? After all, expats drink. Consider that even if it was you, a flaw doesn’t mean you’re broken. Cracked, maybe, but cracks can be mended. You're older now, wiser. Eight years is a long time, and Ohio is a long way from Seoul. It can be different now because you’re different now.
Rule: Don't Solicit Unwanted Feedback.
You know which friends and relations will voice concerns and why. There is nothing to be gained from those conversations. Instead, broach the topic with people likely to remain open-minded or supportive of the notion that you might take up drinking again.
Don’t Describe it as "Taking Up Drinking Again."
You aren’t considering taking up drinking again. You’re considering not not drinking.
Do Choose Wisely.
Wait until an appropriate situation arises — a friend’s birthday or a BBQ. Something celebratory with other people. A six-pack of Rolling Rock from Kroger and episodes of The Sopranos on an insignificant Thursday night will feel anticlimactic after building the moment up so much in your head
Rule: Do Savor it.
Hit the new microbrewery for happy hour? Yes. Buy a round at your friend’s Guided by Voices tribute show? Yes. Pre-game before the all-vinyl dance party? Yes. See where the night takes us? Yes. All of it, yes. Revel in liquor’s paradoxical cold bite and soothing, radiant burn. Bum cigarettes. Dance. Taste beautiful, tattooed strangers. Delight in these half-lit snapshots for as long as you can.
Rule: Do Practice Text Message Discipline.
Be judicious in whom you text, when, and for what reason. Avoid rash decisions by transferring the names and numbers of key contacts to your leather-bound organizer, and secure said organizer in your car. Check your outgoing messages each morning. Apologize or ask for clarification as necessary.
Don’t Be Searchable.
Extinguish your social media profiles like candles on a birthday cake. Call it a digital cleanse. Even in a decent-sized city, word travels. It’s imperative you build a firewall between your professional life and your nightlife.
Rule: Do Demonstrate Prudence.
If your life is acquiring a familiar, unpleasant velocity at the same time your boss asks you to attend an out-of-town conference at Purdue University, resolve to abstain from alcohol for the weekend. Critically, if you do feel compelled to join colleagues in a few rounds at the opening reception, politely demur their suggestion of shots.
Don’t Draw Attention.
If Mitch Daniels — former governor of Indiana, veteran of the Bush administration, and current Purdue University president — offers the opening remarks, resist informing your fellow attendees that he’s an asshole. If you must enumerate the reasons why he is, in fact, an asshole, do so later, discreetly.
Don’t Panic When You Come To.
Assess your current level of intoxication. If you are in your hotel room, make a note to find out how you got back. Check yourself for injuries, including cuts, bruises, or other markings owing to falls, fights, or physical encounters. Ask yourself, where’s the last place you remember being, with whom, and where do you need to be now? If none of this is immediately clear, take a hot shower and hope the fog lifts. Scour the ghosts of smoke and booze from your hair and skin until you’re raw. In the likely event that you’ve missed the shuttle to the conference, prepare to walk or use ride share.
Rule: Do Find Out What You Did.
Seek out a compassionate coworker and ask how you got back to the hotel. Control your composed facade as he recounts his ordeal coaxing you into a cab and having to secure help from the front desk after you belligerently refused to reveal your room number. Thank him for his kindness and for providing the names of others deserving of an apology.
Don’t Panic When You Remember the Police.
Lay on the cool tile floor of your hotel bathroom when you suddenly recall in flashes stumbling from your room only to be picked up shortly thereafter by the police, who returned you to the hotel rather than to jail for some reason.
Do Wallow in Shame.
When two friendly coworkers from another department invite you to join them for dinner, decline, you don’t know what you might have done.
Rule: Do Apologize.
You fucked up. The least you can do is own up to the harm you’ve done.
Do Be Prepared to Be Fired.
On Monday, collect any items you might want to take with you should you be escorted out. Wait patiently for the call from HR that, impossibly, never comes.
Rule: Don’t Look for an Epiphany.
No grand understanding comes from asking a question to which you already know the answer.
Keith Powell writes fiction, CNF, and plays. His work can be found at Able Muse, Discretionary Love, Rougarou, Playscripts, Inc., and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of Your Impossible Voice and occasionally tweets @KeithJ_Powell.