It's so easy to become addicted ...

To anything really.  For most people addictions are a danger and something to fear.  But not to me.  My addictions are pleasurable and the only thing dangerous about them is ... well I could go blind.  Haha, but I don't really fear that.  I don't do drugs, I don't smoke ...{well not much and it's just cigarettes if I do} and I drink in fun.  No worries there.  Those addictions aren't really for me.

I become addicted to things that entertain me and fuel my curiosity.  Television, Movies, Books, the Internet.  Other stuff like drugs and alcohol, while fun in their own ways, just don't cut it for me when it comes to addiction.  I drink when I go out.  I drink when I hang out with friends.  And I do it so well that now people associate me with it.  They think that in order to encourage me to go somewhere, to entice me to go with them to a bar or a party or to hang out is to point out that there will be alcohol.

It's strange that they can't tell the difference between someone who is addicted to doing something and someone who just does something well.  I drink well.  Not a lot.  Just well.  Meaning I can handle my alcohol without falling down drunk, so to my friends, this makes me a lush.  Because I can drink most of them under the table.  They don't know how to distinguish the difference.  They don't realize that I can stop drinking today and not touch a bit of alcohol for the next five years and it won't make any difference to me.

I learned to drink well from my 'brother' Dean.  He was this great guy I met when I was working as a waitress in this Mexican restaurant.  He worked as a bouncer in a club just a few doors down.  When we started hanging out together he'd always buy me a drink.  First it started off with my drink of choice, Malibu rum and pineapple juice.  Then he would order shots of Sambuka.  Then he upped the ante and ordered flaming shots of Sambuka.  {That's when the alcohol is set on fire} Then it was onto this glorious concoction called the Blue Fuck.  No idea what was in it, but it was one of the best drinks I'd ever tasted.

By then I'd started going out with three friends from college.  We'd hit this bar every Friday night and Sunday nights called the 8 Ball Lounge.  Just from the name alone you could tell that it was all about pool in that place.  There we met this great bartender named Donny.  {And yes, there began my great appreciation for all bartenders and my own desire to become one.  No, not for the free drinks, but for the art of just knowing how to make the perfect drink.  There's nothing better than creating something from so many variables and having it be appreciated.  Bartenders find that sort of validation every night when they cater to customers.  Well, unless you're stuck in a pool lounge like poor Donny was, where everyone just ordered Beer.}  Suffice it to say when we walked into his life, Donny fell in love with all four of us, because we allowed him to experiment on us, which he greatly appreciated since working at 8 Ball was not a good way to improve his skill as a bartender.

Every time we'd go to the bar Donny would have something new there waiting for us.  And everytime it was perfection.  Well with the exception of this green mint thing that was just horrible, but he worked on that and by the end it was just as glorious as the others.  Needless to say all this experimenting was free.  A fact that just made the entire experience so much better.

But here's where the thin line appears.  The others, they drank, but not always well.  Some of them didn't know how to handle the alcohol and like many, they abused it.  Not to the extent you're thinking either.  They weren't alcoholics.  They just drank to impress.  Which is never really a good thing.  They drank to show that they could drink and to pretend they could handle it.  After a year of Dean's wonderful teaching, I'd long learned that this was a big nono when it comes to drinking.  NEVER drink because you can or because you're trying to impress.  This just leads to a lot of embarrassing situations, like being carried down the stairs to the cab on this really butch chick's back, then puking in the bushes.

Drink because you want to.  But if you're suddenly compelled to STOP!  That's the thin line.  That's where you take social drinking and turn it into alcoholism.  Dean taught me that.  He may not have known he taught me it, but he did.  Watching him and his friends and observing how they drank, showed me clearly that everyone who drank did not have to end up like my father.  A drunk of the worse sort.  Just going near a bar made him drunk.  He drank for reasons unknown to me and really I don't think I'd care to know.

The funny thing was he was a better person when he was drunk.  When he was sober he was a hateful, fucking bastard.  Ha, maybe that's why I don't view alcohol as the enemy as many kids of alcoholics do.  He was what you'd call one of those 'steady' drunks.  He'd perfected that talent that drunks have of having perfect balance.  Of being so drunk that they can lean backwards, almost to the point where they're parallel to the ground and not once fall.

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