Click

I've been thinking about the 'click' lately.

Maybe you know the one?  After you've had a drink, or two, and life just seems to click into place?  The edges get all warm and fuzzy, you love everyone and everything, and boredom and anxiety feel like distant memories?

Yeah, that click.

It is Friday night, and we are hanging out at our beach camp, lounging on the porch and watching the sun go down.  The neighborhood has gathered on someone's porch for drinks, and they are having a grand old time.  The sounds of laughter and clinking glasses permeate the air, and I listen wistfully.

I have that sun drenched, salty feeling; the one that goes so well with a smooth glass of wine. 

My back is sore - I threw it out again early last week - and the kids are clamoring for dinner. The thought of sweating over the grill, or the stove, makes me tired right down to my bones.  Oh, how I want that click.  It would ease my back pain, make the idea of cooking dinner seem palatable, I think.

To distract myself, I go for a little walk, up to the lighthouse on the point next to our cottage.  I sit and listen to the birds, feel the cool evening breeze on my face.  

I think about all the women I have met recently - either in person or through emails - who are brand new to sobriety, or who are struggling to get sober.

This is why it's so hard, I think, to stay away from that first drink.  Nothing beats that click, not really.  It's the antidote to boredom, a prescription for instant relaxation.  

I take deep breaths, feel my lungs inflate with the fresh air.  In.  Out.  Think it through, Ellie. 

The difference between me and a normal drinker is that the click is just the beginning for me.  

Normal drinkers ride that warm feeling, have a drink or two and coast along on happy, relaxed sociability.  They milk the click for all it's worth, but for them it stops there.

I was born without an off switch.  Once I hit the click, I no longer control how much I will drink.  It has always been that way.  

I remember how I tried everything - everything - to get to the click and stay there.  I tried only drinking beer. Or wine. I tried only drinking on weekends, or only when I was out with friends.  Even if I only drank on occasion, there was no telling where I'd end up once I started.  Sometimes I could control it, and for years I thought only about those times when I was able to rein it in, stop at the click.   There were only a few examples to choose from, but I kept them close at hand, and discarded all the evidence to the contrary.

With a sigh, I turn and head back to the cottage, a heavy feeling in my bones. I miss it, I think.  And that's okay.  Ride it out.  It will pass.  It always does. 

~~~~~~~

Later that evening, after the dishes are washed up and dessert devoured, we settle down at the kitchen table to work on a 550 piece puzzle.  The only light comes from a portable gas lantern, and it casts a warm glow over the kids' faces, like a campfire.

"It's family puzzle night!" Greta grins.

Finn furrows his brow, looking for one certain piece.  When he finds it his face lights up: "I FOUND it, Momma!  That makes FWEE pieces for me!"

I would have missed this, I think. I would have gone into numbness, there-but-not-there, my mind distracted by whether it would be okay to pour another drink.

Greta leans her head on my shoulder, "I love family puzzle night," she says with a contented sigh.

And, all of a sudden, there it is: I'm content, relaxed.  I'm happy.

CLICK.