I will admit I have had a couple of episodes in my life where I had to check my motives. The first was very young and what I believe many youth go through, but the difference for me was I had what I call that alcohol gene in me. I drank quite heavily in high school, again it was part of the scene, but the day I decided to drink my lunch prior to taking my senior year finals just to see if I could pass drunk was a sobering moment for me going forward. This event marked the day I backed away from the “bottle” so to speak and had to do some reflection, well as much as I was able to do as a teenager.

The second incident came many years later when I in was in a high stress job. My husband and I had an opportunity to do some house sitting and I was really keen on doing this because of the beautiful pool, so we rented our home and toddled over to our new temporary home. As it turned out the travelers came back early and we wound up “homeless” in a tiny condo that resembled more a 600 sq ft warehouse of our belongings rather than a home. We were miserable. Everyday I would come home and have a cocktail. It all started out honest enough and it felt good, after all I have watched so many shows and movies where this was all quite normal and expected behavior. It morphed into a desire I would start thinking about mid afternoon and how I just couldn’t wait to get home, relax and have my cocktail. Then it graduated into a mood changer, if my day was looking to run longer than usual, I would start to get impatient with people and my surroundings, as they were standing in my way of getting home to have my highly coveted cocktail. This went on for about 6 months and along the way one cocktail turned into two. Then one day as I was driving home, I realized I was driving rather fast and had this sort of panic feeling inside that I just had to reach my destination. I got home that day, sat down without my cocktail and realized this innocent nice to have, deemed normal in our society stress reliever had grown in to an absolute must have at all cost. Once again I was confronted with the exercise of self reflection and identifying my motives. I was fortunate, I was able to stop and replace one activity for another.

All this to say, I believe a nice to have drink occasionally, socially or even every evening can work just fine for most people as long as you’re not one like me with the alcohol gene and it turns into the center of your day.

Daphne, I wish you and Mark much success with your new venture! How exciting for you both.

Good Vibes,
Ellen

It can be tough. But what is better than kicking off your shoes, having one with a close friend, and just forgetting about all you’re responsible for awhile?