NOT DRINKING TODAY (AGAIN)

“Are you drinking or not drinking today?” my friend, Morgan, asks me on a regular basis, partly in jest, partly serious. This alone should be a message. She is that enviable person who can just have “a drink” without making a big deal out of it. In our almost ten years of friendship I have never seen her out of control after having too much to drink. I am guessing she would not likely say the same thing about me. I am fairly confident that if she is reading this piece today, she is actually laughing at the non stop alayne drinking a little too much memories.

Truth be told, though, I have always been party girl. Going as far back as junior high school parties, my personality has been gathering the troops and enjoying the moment. Here’s the problem for me though, like a bag of potato chips, I can’t just eat one. I struggle with just one of anything, frankly.

I wish I was the type of person who could just have one glass of wine and call it a day. My grandmother was that type of person. “Everything in moderation, Alayne,” she would say with such conviction. If she only knew that I inherited my father’s genes in that department. And he probably inherited his grandfather’s genes.

I had it coming to me from both sides. My mother’s father, my grandfather, Bill and my father’s grandfather, Joe, both enjoyed their moments with the bottle. Scotch (or was it vodka?) for my old great grandfather, an immigrant from “the old country,” Russia. Drinking during the day while at work was the norm back in “those days”when salesmen…