september 17 abv
The title track of the second Heartless Bastards record played in my head earlier today. Remembering the song felt great, but remembering something associated with the song felt, well, let's just go with less than great.
I saw them play once. It was lively little set at Montreal's late, great Green Room, a showbar I hated until I loved it. (It might have loved me back, because shortly after I moved away in 2009 the place burned down —– faulty wiring behind a jukebox or something like that.)
I must have interviewed one of the Bastards ahead of the show because we all went out drinking afterward. I wanted Erika Wennerstrom (vocals, guitars, keys) to think I was cool because she was cool and I wasn't, but after a few beers all of that stopped mattering. All that mattered after those few beers (and the beers I had at Green Room) was that I was at Dieu du Ciel! deep in conversation with Mike Lamping (bass) engaging in my favourite hobby: shovelling dirt on a version of myself I was trying to bury alive.
It took me a long, long time to realize what needing three or four drinks to loosen up meant. I honestly thought everyone was like that. I thought my drinking was normal, and for that city, in that scene, at that time, it probably was. Still, facts are facts, and I had a drinking problem for over a quarter century.
I don't know when I actually "quit" drinking, but the day I decided that I wasn't going to drink anymore was July 6, 2020. When I tell people the story, I say the plan was to quit drinking for a week, and then, when I got to a week, I decided I would go two weeks. Then two became three. Then three became a month, which became two months, and then three months. Then (because I'd already done a quarter of a year)— six months. Then (because I'd already done half a year) a year, and so on.
That story is true too. That's how it happened. But I knew that the bourbon I drank on July 5, 2020 was the last I'd ever have. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. Sometimes you do something long enough that you just know when it doesn't feel right, like when a relationship suffers a fracture that you know will be fatal even if the breakup takes a while to actually occur.
When I hit six years sans booze on July 6, 2026, I didn't even notice. I hadn't been counting down the days and I didn't have a special celebration planned to commemorate the achievement. That's when I knew that not drinking wasn't an achievement anymore but rather the status quo.
It's cool when you save your own life. It really is.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch play
🌳 grass Balatro
🌷 now
Be good to yourself.
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