My friend from AA took me out to breakfast yesterday. He's not a sponsor per se, but he was celebrating his one year when I started going to AA locally; really we're more compadres than anything else-both fish, do carpentry, are raving liberals. We didn't plan it that way but a lot of the talk was about strategies to deal with drinking that goes on all around us. Over the holidays he had faced down a few opportunities with flying colors. He also had a 30 yr high school reunion recently and apparently the jello shots were flying there but he managed to get by quite comfortably.

I'm on the eve of a longish trip and the talk made me wonder how I'll cope on the warm island I'm headed for. Her family drinks and it's best to have a good excuse that will make sense there. It is not enough to say, I don't drink, as they say here in the States. It would confuse, possibly offend and I don't want to be constantly explaining myself. I know that some AA vets here would probably wag their heads at this thinking but I wonder if it's easier to share a few glasses of beer. Right now, my plan is not to touch the stuff but I just have to formulate a good strategy. No one here should confuse my pragmatism with a desire to drink; I am without any of the cravings that have intermittently plagued me for the last 2-3 years. And I successfully returned from this place less than a year ago with my head intact.

I'm going to throw out old notions of what a vacation means and work on new notions of me. I wish each and all another 24 hrs respite from the madness that drinking can become. Every new day is another great opportunity to put oneself further and further away from this.