The Mental Gymnastics of Deciding When to Have a Drink

from carefree to calculating, my evolving relationship with drinking

I most certainly enjoy having a drink. A small chilled glass of crisp sake with sushi, an ice-cold beer at a ball game, a glass of red wine with my favorite bowl of pasta, a dirty martini at Sunset Tower, and cocktails with girlfriends just because. I’ve never been one to shy away from them (except during Covid when I gave it up entirely). There’s something about a perfectly paired drink that feels like punctuation at the end of a sentence - an exclamation point, a semicolon, a little ellipsis inviting you to linger. It’s celebratory, indulgent, and just…fun.

But as life evolves, so has my relationship to alcohol.