Family date night to Chris  Stapleton concert Saturday  There is so much about sobriety in this experience that it is hard to know where to start.  Let’s start with the big painful first.

Hubs had 3, maybe 4, beers during this 4 hour event.  Tall cans, not short ones.  Light beer.  He’s 6’1″ & 210 lbs.  We had dinner before the event – he ate.  He loves Stapleton. He was singing, dancing (if you call it that); on his feet most of the show. Kid leans tome & says he cannot drive us home ’cause he’s  drunk.  Ok, I say, sipping my water, I am happy to drive.  A little later, we go buy t-shirts and use the potty and I am going to pick him up a beer (he didn’t ask, I just thought he was out & would appreciate) and she says he doesn’t need anymore.  The beer stand was closed, and she voiced her pleasure about that fact.

I have seen my hubs drunk.  I did not think this was that.  Truly, I thought she was being overly concerned.  I thought he had 3 beers.  She said he had 4.  It’s possible, highly possible, she is right and I am wrong.  I wasn’t sitting beside him & she was.  I wasn’t counting and she clearly was paying very close attention.  But even with 4 beers he was only acting like a concert goer — he wasn’t slurring, stumbling, or doing drunk stuff.  I call this part the big painful bc did I do this to her?  Make her anxious that everyone who drinks is drunk?  Is this a normal thing?  Are most 10 yo’s hyper aware about alcohol?  She has had questions about it recently – what does beer taste like — and that had (??) nothing to do with me (??).  Some other  kid in summer camp got to taste some and said it was gross and now my kid has questions for me about that.

My stomach is in knots and my head hurts writing this and thinking: it has to be my drinking that made her hypervigilant about alcohol.  It has to be my explanatory shortcomings (read: absence) about my own sobriety that made her think the only option is complete abstinence and anything else is very . . .

w o r r i s o m e.

Arrgh.  I hate this.  We are going to have to have a family conversation .  I don’t want to promise not to ever drink again.  Hell, I have purposely avoided thinking that far ahead. I don’t want to explain why I’m not drinking.  Shit, that is why I blog about it in PRIVATE instead of going to AA or seeing a fucking counselor.  I do not want to explore all of these details about alcohol myself and certainly not with an audience of my loved ones.  I don’t want to improperly justify hubs drinking to her, or improperly shame him about something that I’m not sure was what she thought it was.  But, I recognize that he likes to drink to feel the buzz and I don’t have any GD clue WHAT to say to the 2 of them about THAT.  I do not want to talk about drinking like this.  I do not.  I do not. Fuck.

I prolly shoulda started this post on the easier notes bc now I am an anxious ball.  Here’s the rest:

-people drink a lot at concerts.  I saw a man too drunk to walk being escorted by the cops to. . . his seat? The pokey?  I dunno.  I saw his friends escorting him, with the same drunken amble, hours before so. . . by the time the cops got him he musta been LIT UP. I saw a guy sticking his finger down his throat to make himself puke at the end of the concert.  He was riding in a MiniVan with the  door open as he repeatedly leaned out to spit, you know, the pre-puke stage.  This was an adult with kids.  Or else a weird mini van fetish.  Anyway, come on dude, get your party on but hold onto your stomach contents. His wife was pissed off.   If he puked in that mini van Saturday night, her Sunday of soccer and a grocery store run was going to stink.  That was a miserable van. Drink totally ruined a perfectly good evening for everyone in that van (and it was a buncha people – all waitin on this guy to heave so they could close the door and start driving home).

-I partied my ass off totally sober.  Outta my seat yellin the lyrics.  Dancing.  Clapping.  Screaming.  Jumpin up and down.  Arms waving.  Clearly, I needn’t have worried about my ability to let loose sober – no problem there.  It was awesome to experience this concert sober, to stay the whole time, and not feel drunk tired.  This event was way past my bedtime so I was physically tired, but that’s different.

-I felt proud to be the sober concert goer, to be the sober parent in my family.  While the kid’s comments trouble me, I was pleased to be able to be there for her, emotionally and as a driver, by myself being totally sober.  And, I’m not gonna lie, when I first thought about this post, before figuring out the big painful part, what I thought about writing was how I felt a lil superior to the other concert going drunks.

-At the beginning of the concert I wanted to drink.  Everyone was drinking and it was a concert for Christ’s sake.  You *get* to drink at concerts.  But it has gotten weird, this wanting.  I don’t want many things at the same time that I do want to drink.  And, the drink-wanting is less/different, it really feels like I am longing for something out of habit, a desire to fit in, to be like everyone else, but at the same time, I am feeling like the down sides outweigh the upside and so, no drink.  I don’t want a hangover.  I don’t want the bags under my eyes or sleep loss or dehydration or old looking skin.  I don’t want to have to quit again.  I don’t want to embarrass myself drunk.  I don’t want to face the kid (not explain, literally look at her) while drinking.  So, no drink.  The drinking desire was fleeting.  When the lady ahead of me walked back to her seat with a carafe of white wine I was very intrigued, but then she acted like a drunken fool and whatever longing vibes I had been feeling toward her went away.

Anyway.  I sober concerted.  This is like the 3rd one.  Like most things, it’s better sober.  I guess I’ll go google “how to talk to your child about alcohol now.”  Deep sigh.

-Q