Why I Quit Drinking

You get that odd look when you order plain cranberry juice at a bar? Let’s set the record straight. I never have had a drinking “problem” – every time I bent my elbow, my mouth opened. Still does. The muscles must be joined somehow through years of repetition. I could consume plenty of volume, but never at times to interfere with work or most social relationships. Then I went into the city (SF) one Saturday afternoon.

My psych tells me to stick to the portion of the story that we have “worked through, come to understand, and feel we know now” in the several years since. “Don’t speculate,” he warns, “that’s like sticking your hand into brackish water. You never know what lurks beneath the surface.” I hear, “let me do the speculation – afterall, I get paid to do such things.”

Here is what we know so far. I woke up 4 days later outside the eastern Russian town of Kyzyl. Mongolia was barely 20 miles south. I could smell yak. Some chick named Olga was lying next to me adoring her new wedding ring. We were under – literally – some kinda fur blanket. (That’s probable where the yak smell came from.) Olga farted a lot (maybe that was the yak smell). Fourteen empty vodka bottles lay around the room. After the door burst open and I was hauled off (naked) to jail, it took forty-two days before the State Department got off their ass and I flew home. In the seven years since, I have had neither a drink nor an erection.

Coincident with the above, I stopped eating meat. I haven’t a clue why. Psych-o calls that “brackish water,” too. Then he mumbles something about green lollipops with circular handles. Maybe we’ll “work through” that someday. I feel like having a tangerine now. Bye.