I’ll spare you the George Thorogood song. Like a lot of people, my early drinking was always with a group. Like a lot of people, a happy effect was feeling looser in socializing, and fitting more easily in with the group. Even when the drinking reached binge-status after hours of partying, no one was concerned – even when the binges were several times a week. We were all doing it, and it was totally normal. 

But like a lot of alcoholics, I ended up drinking alone. No one wanted to drink as much or as frequently as I did. Also it seemed I had fewer and fewer friends – or at least that my friends were busy living lives, while all I wanted to do with my days was drink. I don’t really remember, but I’m pretty sure I was drinking alone by 2004. I was definitely drinking alone by 2005 – and not just a beer to take the edge off; I was pounding several in a sitting, in the middle of the day. I’m only realizing now as I write this that this actually went on for years, and started way earlier than I would have thought. 

I also tell myself that I didn’t think of my drinking as a problem until 2018, but that’s not true either. At various points, I started making rules for myself, because I knew my drinking was out of control, but I wanted to moderate rather than quit. I remember trying to do Sober October with another friend to prove to ourselves that we definitely didn’t have a drinking problem. Side note: People who definitely don’t have a drinking problem don’t even have to ask the question, much less prove it to themselves. I don’t remember how my friend did, but I was drinking again within 2 weeks. I mean, October is pumpkin beer season. 

But I digress. One of the earliest rules I made for myself was that I would only drink socially. Other people were a requirement for having a drink. That’s what drinking like a normal person looked like to me. As you can imagine, I got a whole lot more sociable. I was constantly looking for people to drink with. When I couldn’t find anyone, I was surly and morose about my lonely life, when I was probably just in withdrawal from alcohol. Alcoholics who have made rules about their drinking know this: After a while, there’s a reason to have just one, even though you’re alone, just one, just this once. Well, now that I’ve broken the rule, maybe have 3. Well, now that I’ve broken the rule already this week, maybe I’ll start again fresh next week. Well, now that I’ve broken the rule, I’m having a bad week so maybe I’ll start again next week. Aaaand…we’re back, drinking as much as ever, and drinking alone.

When I started drinking alone in 2004, I was definitely running from a lot of problems. I did a lot of running for a morbidly obese woman. In The Sober Diaries, Clare Pooley lays it out: “When you drink socially, you drink for the buzz, the relaxation, the shared change of mood. When you drink alone, you drink because you’re stressed. Bored. Angry. Lonely… The problem with drinking alone is that that’s when the vino morphs from being ‘social lubrication’ to ‘self-medication.’… Plus, if you only drink socially, you’re more likely to drink about the same as your peers. Drink alone and you set your own measures.” 

By the end of my drinking days in 2018, I found social drinking agonizing. I only had one friend who wanted to drink like I drank. We spent many very joyful hours matching each other drink for drink. But at work happy hours, I would drain my drink quickly and wring my hands about when it would be socially acceptable to order another one. A bar with slow service was like torture – Ludacris captures the experience: “Where the f*ck is the waitress at with my drink?” Why wait around for a drink, worrying my drinking was being scrutinized, running the risk of getting too sauced, when I could just drink at home, to my heart’s content, in the safety of isolation? If the story of drinking is to help people socialize, I had completely lost the plot.

Am I lost without drinking as social lubrication? Well, I guess I’ve shrugged and admitted before that I’m more serious now as a non-drinker, not quite the cut-up that I used to be. Rather than groups, I suppose I do better one-on-one, when I tend to go deep with my friends. But I’m really there with my friends when I’m with them – I’m not drumming my fingers waiting for the next drink, and I’m not looking forward to getting home so I can get properly drunk alone. And honestly? Most of my friends have gone pretty straight. They’ve left their drinking behind to be good parents and partners. It doesn’t bother me to go out with them and not have “just one,” because I never enjoyed having “just one.” Unless it was several, I hardly saw the point. Finally, I see that the point was the people I was with, not the drink in my hand.