Last Year I Drank Tequila

And then a beer, a margarita, a couple vodka sodas, and two more tequila shots.

Last year I drank tequila. This year I don’t.

AI-Generated image made by RICKiRICKi with Lexica

November 2017. The bars in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood close at 2 am on weekends. It is now 3:30 am and I am aimlessly wandering the streets in a T-shirt. Cold and drunk. I lost my jacket, my friends, and my phone is dead.

A month before that night, I came to on a stoop in South Boston. Food at my feet, arms covered in sharpie ink, unaware of how a Saturday bike ride turned into a 2-day binge drink through the neighborhoods of Boston. But the unread text messages told me I had a good time. Good time, huh?

Oh, I almost forgot. Squeezed in between these two nights was the time I drove the 45 minutes home at 2:30 am — drunk and videoing every time I passed 100mph. “Which time” is right as this happened more than once.

I don’t include these stories in an attempt to glorify my nights out, nor to legitimize my party life. The party life I had. If anything, typing these words out are both painful and embarrassing. These were the moments that sparked my sobriety. For so long, I had policed myself by saying “no drinking for one week” or “Sober January” only to return to alcohol and to experience similar chapter endings. Insanity. These were temporary band-aid resolutions to a…