It's time to re-evaluate my life

When I was in college, I spent one year living in the sorority house and 1 of my 3 roommates would decide, after about 2 months of drunken debauchery, that she should re-evaluate her life. This usually occurred after a particularly crazy night of partying that resulted in some not-so-smart decisions. You wake up in the morning, full of regret, wishing you hadn't had that last tequila shot, and thinking, if I could do this night over again, I would. And I would change everything. But you can't. You can't change anything. And you did take that last shot right before you made that poor decision. And you begin to feel that the only way to make up for this self-destructive behavior is to "re-evaluate your life".

It's a coping mechanism, to some extent. You think back to the many evenings that were not-so-sober, spent with gentleman friends that you possibly did more than just hold hands with; you beat yourself up for all your stupid behavior and you tell yourself that you're finally going to pull your head out of your ass, grow up and start acting your age. No more of this blind drunken debauchery that makes you feel like shit in the morning - partially due to the hangover/dehydration, partially due to the poor decisions you made. No more. It's time to put your childish ways behind you and move on to behaving like the adult that you know is somewhere inside of you.

The actions that follow over the next few weeks can vary, depending on what type of purger you are. Some people find that they want to throw themselves into religion. Some people hole themselves up in their homes and stop answering the phones when their friends call to get together. Some people throw themselves into their job. Others simply abstain from an unhealthy lifestyle by giving up alcohol, cigarettes, any other recreational drug and begin "working out" constantly. Others turn to food and take comfort in replacing one unhealthy substance with a fattier one.

We all have our own ways of trying to remove ourselves from the bad situation that makes us feel like shit two-fold. And the first step to recovering from our bad behavior is admitting we need to do something about it. Well, I think I've hit my breaking point and it's time for my own little re-evaluation. (yay! admission! I'm on my way to recovery!)

Day drinking and I have a rather destructive relationship. When we see each other on a beautiful saturday afternoon, we immediately pick up where we left off the previous time we were together. Which, in most cases, is a saturday in the fall, during football season or a Sunday Funday in the summer. We embrace. We share a brewski. We play games. We laugh and frolick in the beautiful sunny day. We've missed each other! But we're reunited and it feels SO good! Before you know it, we're 5 beers deep, and the sun is beginning to go down. Wait! Don't leave yet! We still have more games to play! There's still more fun to be had! So to make the most of the little time we have left together, we binge. Maybe if we drink faster, it will prolong our time together! But that never is actually the case. Day drinking has to leave me. He needs his rest to prepare for another beautiful day tomorrow. And I should follow by his example and just go home. But I don't. Instead, to spite day drinking, I cheat on him with night drinking. I continue to binge until the wee hours of the morning...when day drinking wants to return, but by then, I'm cross-eyed, alone and blubbering to strangers. Night drinking was not nearly as kind to me as day drinking was. He brings bad behavior with him in the form of attractive male suitors and liquor. But I don't actually blame night drinking. I blame day drinking. He was the one who got me started. He gave me my fix and then left me. If he'd never shown up in the first place, I wouldn't be where I am right now! I wouldn't have tried to kiss every guy in sight. I wouldn't have a blood blister on my hip. I wouldn't have gotten sad and cried to a stranger. I wouldn't have drunk dialed 8 different guy friends. And I certainly wouldn't have taken a cab all the way to my house by myself.

No, if day drinking and I hadn't embraced like we did, I probably would have just stayed home, kept my dignity and wouldn't feel so hungover. I wouldn't have made a complete fool of myself. Then again, I probably also wouldn't be here, resolving to re-evaluate my life plans. So maybe I should thank Day Drinking for making me realize my issues and resolve to quit them? Maybe now, I've realized the error of my ways, and maybe I'll actually do something about it?

But chances are, I'll simply stop drinking for 2 weeks then be right back to where I started. After all, St Patty's day is coming up...