Tequila: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

I can distinctly remember the first time I drank tequila. It was the eve of my 18^th birthday and my friend was astounded I hadn’t tried it before. I recall the tutorial about licking the salt off your hand, taking the shot and then sucking on the lime. I loved tequila that night and hated it the next morning – a tale as old as time.

Don Julio didn’t ingratiate himself into my life until the end of college. My early and late twenties were full of frequent use of this delicious elixir for any occasion, from nights out to house parties to birthdays and weddings to funerals and just a plain old Tuesday night with friends.

There was a period in my mid-twenties when I severed ties with Don and his extended family for a few years. They had questionable effects on my good judgement and after some precarious incidents, I parted ways with them. There needed to be a chill period.

I turned to another unstable friend, Jack Daniels, but alas, he too had an expiration date.

No matter the time, distance or unpredictable encounters though, tequila and I have always seemed to find our way back to each other.

Throughout the last few years in particular, I’ve made conscious efforts to dial back my consumption of tequila and alcohol as a whole. I cut myself a little slack for overindulging though as the 20s is often full of boozy days, nights, events and any occasion that deems itself worthy of needing some supplemental entertainment.

At some point though, you need to re-evaluate your choices and be real with yourself.

I knew that I had abused alcohol to the tenth power hundreds of times for over a decade. I praise some higher power for steering me clear of alcohol poisoning, jail, vehicular manslaughter or a combination of all three. Really taking that in and pondering how things could’ve turned out differently, I’ve felt a mix of grateful, ashamed, and disappointed in myself.

I don’t know where you’re from, but for me, heavy alcohol usage isn’t rare or something that will have anyone looking at you condescendingly. It is par for the course growing up and a rite of passage for most that has been occurring for generations.

Being a borderline alcoholic and making some problematic choices as a result is essentially normal in your college days and 20s. But maybe that’s just supported too much by our culture, who knows?

I was enjoying my youth and didn’t see anything outrageously wrong with that on the bigger picture scale. However, growing up with a voracious alcoholic for a parent and some drug addicted friends will teach you very quickly that having fun is all well and good, but keeping an eye on your habits is vital.

Unfortunately, while the words alcohol and moderation are often used together, they don’t often actually intersect when you’re going through the motions of life.

As mentioned, many poor decisions were made as a result of heavy alcohol use throughout my late teens and 20s. I spent thousands of dollars I shouldn’t have, slept with some people I probably would not have otherwise and drove drunk countless times – sometimes being ‘perfectly fine’ to drive and other times almost getting into bad accidents that could’ve taken my life or others’.

One night, I hit a guard rail on a very narrow highway that has many twists and turns. My car took a heavy hit, but we both survived. Another time, I thought I could drive the hour home from a friend’s college. I found myself passing out at the wheel and woke up flying off the highway, almost getting wiped out by a tractor trailer. I was within two seconds of being roadkill. That was REAL.

I couldn’t even begin to dredge up the upwards of a dozen other times that I almost got into life-or-death accidents. The small stroke of luck I had with that was that no one else was really involved in any of those moments.

My memory is one of my best assets, but in these moments, I’m glad that part of my brain can barely recall them in the deep recesses of my mind. I shudder at the thought of my recklessness.

A person could read the above and think ‘wow, this person clearly has a problem and shouldn’t be drinking anymore’. I’ve thought these things too, but in my perhaps selfish and/or ignorant opinion, I choose to look at it as a matter of life experience and growth with age in addition to being extremely grateful.

I would never do anything like that now. My experiences have taught me to not fuck around again and I have a mechanism in my brain that just will not allow it.

Another part of the puzzle for me is that my entire 20s were influenced by hefty anxiety, panic attacks and OCD.

During the panic attack era, one of my main coping mechanisms was a strong drink. Xanax made some appearances, but wasn’t a mainstay because I have seen and lived enough to know better. Even if I did actually need it, I wasn’t going to travel that road for long.

Those few years, I went to therapy, I took my vitamins and worked out. I did some of the things I knew were beneficial. But they weren’t enough. Sometimes, I needed something to shut my brain off – or at least that part of my brain – and let me unwind for a while. And ta-da… alcohol.

While I do attribute my alcohol abuse to being in that age bracket where it feels acceptable and is somewhat supported by society, I also sometimes felt that I NEEDED it to get through a rough patch.

Now, mental health disorder or not, millions of us can relate to relishing in a nice glass of something after a long day or during a difficult period to ‘take the edge off’. It’s not healthy though.

With time, trial and error and pivotal life moments, I naturally became a bit more seasoned in the game. I always understood that reaching for a drink couldn’t be a regular solution, but initially didn’t have enough willpower or proper tools to do any different.

Getting older allowed me to achieve some more peace of mind and learn other, more sustainable techniques to deal with the chaos inside.

That being said, just because I’ve dialed back my intake doesn’t mean I’ve stopped drinking altogether. I, on average, have a couple drinks a few nights a week. By societal standards and any ‘normal’ person’s view, this is pretty light work and no cause for concern.

But I keep a firm grip on myself – usually. Maybe two or three times a year, a wild night will happen and I’ll wake up with a bit of regret, but it’s not ALL THE TIME anymore, so I don’t let it consume me.

One of the amazing silver linings of having OCD is that it has allowed me to be ultra-attentive to moderating my drinking habits. It essentially forces me to be more accountable in this regard.

Having a genuinely reduced desire to drink also let’s you really see how others interact with you and their own relationship with their vices.

I’ve noticed times when hanging with certain friends one-on-one that they are noticeably uncomfortable if I’m not drinking and/or that by way of, they’re drinking by themselves.  It shows you that everyone can have their own insecurities or doubts with the concept.

More than that, on a surface level, it has made me question what else I have in common with said friends beyond socializing around alcohol. Many can relate to going out and when you say you’re not drinking, you get lightly mocked or peer pressured.

There are levels to drinking and vices in general. Some people don’t think about it at all, some people are attentive to their intake. Some indulge regularly, but never develop a problem, whereas other are simply functioning addicts and aren’t ready to be honest with themselves.

Despite if any of the above sounds like conflicting reports, it’s really just the inner workings of a mind laying it all out there. The truth of the matter is that while I love a good margarita or glass of wine sometimes, my desire to imbibe has gone down so drastically the last few years.

I drink because it’s fun, social and tastes good, not because I am white-knuckling it through life.

I continue to make a mindful effort to be on top of my health and moderate my behaviors because I want to be better and do better. The past had some vicious moments and I’m not proud of all of them. But it is what it is – they happened.

I will forever love tequila and will quite possibly forever indulge in it every so often. But my desire to level up in life and be successful in every which way overrides that craving.

It’s been one of the big, twisted love stories of my time and damn, it’s provided some colorful highs and lows. Every great relationship has its peaks and valleys though, right? All in all, I never thought I’d be in a long-term thing with a guy named Don Julio, but hey… life is never what you’d expect.