First of
all, a disclaimer… I do not want, nor would I ever attempt to have my personal
life-choices imposed upon ANYONE else. So, as you read this consider it to be
an explanation and not a sermon. Every person makes their own choices in life…
like it or not.
Tiz the
Holiday season and as is the case every year at this time there are parties,
the booze flows freely- “come on, have one,” is the offering. And when I tell
the host, or self-appointed bar tender that I don’t drink that awkward
expression comes to their face as they meekly withdraw. Often there is a slight
gasp,
“You don’t
drink?” they ask in puzzlement, “Really?... REALLY?”
What is it?
Religion? Are you a recovering alcoholic? Are you… what? At the very least I
have just, once again, violated one of the strongest social norms in our
culture- so there must be some deep seeded reason why I have chosen to so blatantly
not fit in… especially during the holidays, or during a party, or, God forbid,
both!
This past
season I was questioned by someone who seriously wanted to know why I didn’t
drink. My normally humorous deflection of the question which is: “Well, after
my second chainsaw and bus stop incident the judge told me I had to quit,” just
didn’t satisfy this person who sincerely want to know my reasoning. Thus, for
those of you who are reading this and may also be curious as to why I have
never done recreational drugs, used any form of tobacco, or ingested a drop of alcohol
(yes- at our wedding toast, my wife had a glass of bubbly and I had a glass of
iced tea… everyone said I jinxed our marriage… we just celebrated our 28th
anniversary,) here is my actual reasoning.
Long ago, at
the ripe age of 14, I considered all of life’s problems that any person may
encounter, from the tiny to the huge, personal, medical, financial, legal,
marital and professional. And while looking at that huge scope it struck me
that many, many of those problems had their deepest roots in either alcohol,
narcotics, tobacco or a combination of those. So, if I were to delete those
three things from the equation I could make my journey through life far more
easy. Thus, I decided that I simply would not do that stuff.
Of course I
also had to make sure that I did not try and push my decision onto anyone else.
My standard became that if you wanna do drugs- go ahead, just don’t do it
around me. If you wanna smoke- go ahead, just as long as I don’t have to smell
it. If you wanna drink- go ahead, just don’t get in my way while you’re doing
it. Yet the yang to that yin is that, “I was stoned,” “I was drunk,” or “you
gotta die from somethin’ ” aren’t valid excuses to me.
Going
through one’s teen years as a “straight” or “square” or, as they used to say in
my high school in the 70s, “red” kid was a bit awkward at the least, and
un-cool at the worst. The drugs and the booze and the smoke were just about everywhere.
In the words of Rush, “In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, be cool
or be cast out… in the basement bars, in the backs of cars, be cool or be cast
out.” Fortunately, my high school was not the sort to actually cast anyone out
plus my reputation for hockey sticks and pucks pretty much overshadowed the
fact that I was a non-indulger- so I had a pretty easy go of it. Other schools
were not so tolerant. My girlfriend from my high school days, who went to a
different school, actually dumped me in favor of parties, bongs and red solo
cups filled with temporary feel-good. Oddly, about that same time one of the
guys who I normally associated as being one of the stoners in my high school
came knocking on my door asking if I wanted to go bike riding. In our little
farm town you could get on those country roads and just ride for hours and
rarely see anyone else. So, we took up riding, talking and generally hanging out
together. He told me that once he decided to quit doing drugs he found that
when the stoners hung out all they ever talked about was drugs. Suddenly he had
nothing in common with them. They could not understand it when they offered him
some and he didn’t take it. Also, when they found out he was hanging out with
me, they wanted nothing to do with him. So, although most of our school was
quite tolerant, the stoners believed in be cool or be cast out.
When I went
off to college I figured I’d be far away from any stoners because I was at a
well known aeronautical university and it had an absolute 100% ZERO tolerance policy
when it came to recreational drug use. If you were caught, you GONE- period.
Additionally, if drugs were found in your dorm room everyone in the room was
gone. No appeals, no hearings, no excuses- you were all just gone. And they
proved that the first week that I was there. Someone in the dorm left a little
bag of pot on a table and the R.A. spotted it and that person, his roommates
and the kid from down the hall who was in the room with them were all expelled
on the spot. You’d have thought that this would send a clear message, but it
was soon discovered that there was only zero tolerance IF you got caught.
Yet college
was the easiest place for me to run under the radar as a non-drinker. First, I’m
naturally a little bit crazy (that’s denoted in the fine print on my birth
certificate) and secondly- I wrote a popular cartoon strip in the student news
paper, so everyone assumed I had to be drunk in order to do such a thing. When
attending a party I would grab the traditional red solo cup and pour some 7up
into it and nurse it all night- everyone just assumed I was drinking booze
until they were so intoxicated that they no longer could tell the difference.
My own wife did not believe for nearly two years after were together that I
didn’t drink. That was because the night that we met it was at a student
newspaper party. She said that after we were introduced she watched me and some
of my friends get drunker and drunker and louder and louder until she was sure I was way past being
just drunk. In fact I was totally sober and just having fun. Now she says that
I get contact-drunk at a party; but at least I’m always able to safely drive
her home when she’s actually drunk.
Oddly, even
once out of college there have been many people who are almost embarrassed when
everyone else is ordering drinks and I’m not. They feel compelled to make excuses
for me saying stuff such as, “He’s an on-call corporate pilot and he’s not
allowed to drink,” or, “his medication would allow him to drink,” or “he’s
everyone’s designated driver.” There are also the occasional people who try and
force me into taking a drink. One individual tried to make a bet with me and if
I won he’d pay me $20, but if he won I had to take a drink. I simply told him I
wouldn’t bet with those terms.
The bottom
line always seems to come down to that question of “why?” Indeed why would I
decided to defy such an ingrained social norm- I mean, “…even Jesus drank wine,”
one person quipped at me. I replied that I have nothing against wine- the more
my wife drinks, the better I look. Yes, that question is always best answered with
humor. I was once at a picnic when some guy nudged me and half snarled, “The
booze is free, why the hell are ya’ drinkin’ water?” I saw it coming and had a
whole mouth full of H2O which I let go in an enormous spit-take that got his
shoes. Coughing I wiped my mouth and said, “Water?! I thought it was just
really shitty vodka!” Yet, I find that cash-bars are a challenge. Bartenders
take cash and tips for alcohol, but water is free. So, when I ask for an ice
water with a slice of lime, which everyone assumes is a mixed drink, the
bartender always scowls. I solve that by handing them the cash for a mixed
drink and they always tell me that water is free, to which I reply, “The water
is free, but your time isn’t, this is for you.” The scowl turns into a smile
and I tip them a couple of bucks for every re-fill. They like me a lot by the
end of the event.
Now,
approaching my sixth decade of life I look back at how many friends and relatives
whose lives have been shortened and or wrecked by those three things that I
decided to delete from my life at age 14. I’d need more fingers to count the
number who had died from tobacco related illness, including my own father.
Additionally I have seen relatives and childhood friends who literally drank
themselves into an early grave. More than a few people who I went to high
school with died from narcotics abuse as did the big brother that I never had. Some
people from my college days, who should have had fine careers in aviation didn’t
because they, “just couldn’t give up the leaf,” as one of my fellow aviators
who could give it up said. Now, when I go in to see the doctor and they ask
about tobacco, alcohol and drugs and I tell them I’m a life-long abstainer,
they say, “good for you!” then I ask them to, without looking at my paperwork,
guess my age. They always guess about 10 years younger. I think I
made the right decision at age 14.
These days I
do a lot of talking to school age kids, elementary and middle school- normally
on the subject of spaceflight, aviation, or shipwrecks and writing and research.
When I conclude I usually ask them one simple question; “Am I cool?” It’s a
totally loaded simple question to which they all sing out, “Yeah!” And I ask, “Are
you sure? I mean, am I the coolest person you’ve met in a long, long time?”
Again they sing out, “Yeah!” Then I act pondering and say, “Well, I don’t
smoke, drink or do drugs… am I still totally cool?” And they sing out “Yeah!” And
I tell them, “Remember, smoking, drinking and doing drugs doesn’t make you
cool, but researching, discovering, learning and doing amazing things makes you
cool.” The teachers and school staff smile big time.
I’ll
conclude by saying that I have also seen some of my close friends who admitted
to themselves that they had problems with one of the three substances that I’ve
avoided, face up to it and with great courage- get sober. They have turned to
others and helped them make their way into sobriety. In this article I may have
made it look easy, but sobriety isn’t easy. Easy is hiding your troubles and
problems at the bottom of a bottle or in a cloud of bong smoke. When life hits
me in the face, when I suffer a career disaster or lose a loved one or suffered
a broken relationship or just plain loneliness, I had to face it head-on, up
front with nothing to shield me but my own character. Yet- that’s the best way.
To my now sober friends, I’m proud of you, now the real fun begins.
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