The Wine Pinch

It seems I am not alone in be­ing very de­struc­tive to my health. Stats show mil­lions of Amer­i­can wom­en drink WAAAAAAY too much wine. Like, a ton. I, my­self, hov­er around a bot­tle a night. Over time. With lots of wa­ter. I do it be­cause I like it and it makes me feel good. Not drunk, not buzzed, just good. But I have to stop, ob­vi­ous­ly. I don’t want liv­er dam­age and I don’t want breast can­cer. Oh and there’s that lit­tle thing called high blood pres­sure I can’t seem to con­trol. There are things I want to be around for, like my sons’ fu­tures, grand­kids, book ca­reer.

So this is my con­fes­sion and my goal: In one month, I will be down to two glass­es a night. Trou­ble is I have to buy those hor­ri­ble lit­tle bot­tles my hus­band and I call boost­ers. If I have a bot­tle sit­ting on the counter, I am go­ing to drink it. I mean, duh. You get that lit­tle needling voice pinch­ing at you – oh, just do it, you’re a mom, you live in des Moines, IA, your kid just left for col­lege, col­lege you can’t af­ford, like the new car you can’t save for be­cause you spend $8 dol­lars a night on wine (cheap, I do know) so hav­ing that next glass warms the pinch­es, makes them feel more like pecks, next glass they are tiny touch­es, last glass: kiss­es.

Last night I had my hus­band pick up three lit­tle wines. He bought the four bot­tle car­ton and I said I would not drink the fourth. I did. What the hell else would any­one ex­pect? I had the pinch­es.

Tonight I will have three lit­tle bot­tles, which are re­al­ly a bit more than your av­er­age glass. I don’t do av­er­age well at all. Nev­er have, nev­er will.
I most­ly nev­er feel the slug­gish wine the next day. I am hop­ing as I cut down, though, that I will feel bet­ter each morn­ing, dis­cov­er things, like mem­o­ry, that I as­sumed was just pre-menopausal fog.

When you have ad­hd, when you spend 36 years cop­ing with­out know­ing what is wrong with you, why you are anx­ious, emo­tion­al, neu­rot­ic, an­gry, moody – you find what you can to slow down, shut your damn brain off for a cou­ple of hours. I tried it all. Pills, booze, hard drugs. Then I had ba­bies and then I was di­ag­nosed. So I take speed dur­ing the day and man­age to start the things I don’t want to, and fin­ish them. Like my nov­el. I Drink my alone time read­ing in the evening. Be­cause we nev­er go out. Be­cause we live in Des Moines. Be­cause I have those pinch­es.

How to deal with the pinch­es? Stop drink­ing. I know. Eas­i­er said than done. I’m all on it un­til about 5 and then it’s as if I will die tonight if I don’t have wine. I will. My brain switch­es in an in­stance, does the old 180 and I’m mak­ing ex­cus­es. My fa­vorite: If we have a par­ent meet­ing at school, we drink. If it’s the con­ven­tion, we drink. If it’s sum­mer, we drink. If the cat looks at me odd­ly, we drink.

It’s child­ish and it is sad and my six­teen year-old is wor­ried I have Ear­ly On­set Alzheimer’s be­cause I don’t ev­er re­mem­ber our 11 o’clock con­ver­sa­tions. Even with­out an al­co­hol swish­ing against my cra­ni­um, I would still re­mem­ber noth­ing, be­cause it’s late and I’m not re­al­ly lis­ten­ing. But you can’t tell your kid you don’t want to hear how amaz­ing he is all of the time.

In the morn­ing, when I wake, and be­fore I re­al­ly open my eyes I think – shit, I drank again. What in the f is wrong with you? Then I at­tempt to go over what hap­pened af­ter that fourth glass. I don’t get mad any­more so I’m at least not scroung­ing around for apol­o­gizes for things I can’t re­mem­ber say­ing. See, I am grow­ing more ma­ture. I think of the gauze draped con­ver­sa­tions with my son. What I promised to do. Like the time I agreed to see Spam lot.

So I take stock. In­ven­to­ry, but not the AA kind. I list what I will miss if I die from drink­ing too much wine. How guilty I will feel. How an­gry with my­self. Then I list the things we could buy if we stop drink­ing. Or not buy, but pay off. It’s hard and ridicu­lous and point­less. Be­cause, by din­ner­time, I’m go­ing to be call­ing my hus­band to pick up wine on his way home. No mat­ter how many things I want to do and live for.

If I’m go­ing to find a start­ing point, it will be there. The 5 o’clock blues, the wine col­or­ing ev­ery thought, my will not gone, just ma­nip­u­lat­ed. I will start here: in my own men­tal ma­nip­u­la­tion.