Non-alcoholic Beverages for the Holidays
Christmas has never been a particular good time for me. I am not religious, so I am missing out on the whole “birth of our savior” part of the holiday. My family is semi-dysfunctional, scattered around the country, and of course many of us are not talking to each other. The typical American family.
Last year, I slid right through the holidays without a bump. I worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve. This enabled me to ignore the holidays to the best of my ability and look forward to my favorite day of the year, New Year’s Day.
New Year’s Day is the day it all starts again. The day I can begin working out again, eating healthy, and taking care of myself. It is also the day that I start on my next year of sobriety – as New Year’s Eve is my “birthday” – this year it will be 14 years. My calculations come out to 51,100 beers that I did not drink during those days. That’s a lot of beer.
But, this year, getting through to that day is not as easy. This year, I am being incorporated into a new family, a family member might be leaving us soon, and I am not in a job where I can hide. I am expected to show my face and smile.
In order to prevent the embarrassment of answering, yet again, why it is that I don’t drink, I am still working on ways to bring my own non-alcoholic beer to parties, and finding good ways to turn down offers of alcoholic drinks without making the hosts seem uncomfortable. After all these years, it is still difficult to figure this one out.