Charlie Work

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Charlie Work

I quit drinking for a few months earlier this year. 

I'm not trying to impress you. It was a choice, not a struggle. Anyway, I was very smug about it the whole time, so I don't need more validation.

I’m also not going to make the claim that I "got sober." Getting sober is an accomplishment that takes effort and determination, and often a fair amount of support, because alcoholism is a disease.  I'm saying I quit because I’m kind of a perfectionist and I don’t like doing things I know I’m not good at. I quit softball and gymnastics and figure skating and basketball and field hockey and playing the trombone and going to art school because I was embarrassingly bad at those things. By quitting, I was accepting what everyone else could already see. 

It's like they say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I wish "they" would be more specific. If you can't have more than two drinks without waking up at 3 AM in a panic that you lost your wallet (you didn't) and said horrible things to people (maybe, but you do that all the time so what's the difference) and then wake up the next day feeling like your head is being crushed in a vise and your stomach is full of live eels, then get out of the bar.

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There are certain types of people who buy into a wellness lifestyle and can't shut up about it. Crossfitters, vegans, people on the keto diet, people who choose elective sobriety, etc. None of those choices are inherently bad, unless you obsess over them and bore the shit out of everyone in your life by talking about it incessantly. You buy into one of those lifestyles, and you're like, I am so evolved. I respect my body too much to poison it with [meat, carbs, alcohol, the inability to flip over tractor tires or whatever the hell they do in Crossfit].

But you know what I realized after I spent 5 months basking in the glow of smug superiority? Obsessing over a lifestyle like that is just elective surgery for your ego. It's like getting butt implants. You might look awesome, but it's not medically necessary to take such drastic measures to live a happy life. If it works for you and makes you feel good, okay, I guess, but don't act like the rest of us are dopes for not doing the same.

Unless you are actually an alcoholic, in which case choosing sobriety is more like getting an appendectomy right before the thing bursts. You're getting rid of something that wasn't necessary in the first place and was actually making you really sick. You're on a different journey, and I respect you.

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I realize that choosing not to drink has been a trendy lifestyle statement this year. Mocktail recipes and sober dance parties abound. That wasn't my original motivation, though feeling like I was finally doing something on-trend did buoy me through some Friday afternoons where a stiff drink would have been just the thing to take the edge off the work week.
My real motivation to take a break from the sauce was my dog, Charlie. Not because I love him so much that he makes me want to be a better person. Hardly. No, watching him struggle with his own drinking problem was like looking into a mirror and seeing a hairier version of myself. Or at least, the side of me that is annoying and obsessive, the side that tends to chug any beverage, regardless of its viscosity or alcohol content. The side that is prone to projectile vomiting.
Charlie has a real and true drinking problem. Put down the phone, you don't need to get the ASPCA involved. We're not filling up his bowl with Hurricane 40s. For his own good, we only give him tap water, but he's a fiend. Once he starts drinking, he’s incapable of stopping until every last drop is gone.  He's like a freshman pledge at a frat party. This dude's drinking like he's got something to prove.
Whenever we put a bowl of water in front of him, we have to count to 10 and then cut him off, otherwise he will drink until the bowl is empty. You might be wondering why that's such a problem, so let's address that. Doggies gotta hydrate, right? It’s a problem because he’s just like his mother, who can’t hold her liquor. He can’t hang. He sucks down the whole bowl, staggers three feet, and all the water just comes pouring back out of his face into a giant puddle on the floor.  I don’t understand how this even happens, anatomically speaking. I’ve asked the vet if there's any chance he could be part pelican, and is just storing all the water in a giant pouch in his gullet. She said no, you just have a disappointing dog. He was basically trashpicked, so that’s fair and she’s not wrong.
Also, you might be wondering why we don't just...put less water in his bowl. That would make sense but it wouldn't actually help him change his habits and learn to practice moderation. That's like patting yourself on the back for resisting the temptation to eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's, when in reality you just didn't have any in the apartment and you were too lazy to put on pants and walk to Kroger. If you can fill up your whole freezer with a pint in every flavor and still fight the urge, then we can talk about willpower and self control.
So when he gets a drink, we count to 10 and then start yelling at him, “Charlie that’s enough!” Sometimes he listens and sadly mopes away from his bowl, but other times he’s so focused that he ignores us and keeps drinking. So we keep yelling “Charlie that’s enough!” until he jerks his head out of his bowl and yells at us like everybody’s drunk Dad. “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!!” And then he makes a bunch of hollow promises and asks why you don't love him. Or maybe that’s just my drunk dad. He’s dead now so it’s fine.

That really took a turn, didn't it?