An Exposé on Liquid Courage & Bathroom Floors
Last Thanksgiving, I was in Virginia visiting family and talking with my godsons and baby cousins about my plans to move to California.
Somewhere in the conversation, I had a strange realization:
I have become the auntie.
Not Aunt Shaye. That's too formal.
Just Auntie.
The one who's lived enough life to have some stories, made enough questionable decisions to have some receipts, and - hopefully - learned enough from them to pass along some useful information.
Which brings me to alcohol.
I have had a complicated relationship with alcohol.
When I was younger, I thought drinking was part of being social. It made me less self-conscious. More relaxed. More willing to talk to people. More willing to pick up a microphone and sing. More willing to say whatever popped into my head.
Basically, I thought alcohol was the shortcut to becoming the version of myself I thought other people would like.
I also apparently had a very generous definition of enough.
I was once nicknamed Pukey at a party.
I passed out in the bathroom of a house belonging to people I didn't know. People had to step over me to get to the toilet.
On the way home, I threw up in their kitchen sink.
A year or two later came what I now refer to as Spew Year's Eve.
I don't remember leaving the bar.
I woke up crammed into the backseat of a car with three or four friends, and apparently we got pulled over because I had my head out the window while throwing up.
There was also the Pink concert.
Christine had to carry me out.
When she put me down, I fell into a bush.
There is photographic evidence.
P!NK CONCERT, 2024
At the time, these were just stories.
Embarrassing stories, certainly. Stories that got retold. Stories that became part of the mythology of being young and having a good time.
And then there was San Francisco.
Last year, I blacked out.
I woke up alone in my hotel room on the bathroom floor, covered in puke.
That one wasn't funny.
There wasn't a group of friends around to turn it into a story. There wasn't a ridiculous nickname. There wasn't even anyone there to tell me what had happened.
Just me.
And a very uncomfortable realization that maybe I needed to stop asking what alcohol was doing for me and start asking what I actually wanted from it.
Because somewhere along the way, something had changed.
I didn't need alcohol to make me social anymore.
I was social.
I didn't need alcohol to make me interesting.
I was interesting.
I didn't need alcohol to give me confidence.
I'd spent enough years becoming comfortable with myself that I had finally built some of that on my own.
And maybe that was the part I had gotten wrong all those years ago.
I thought alcohol was giving me confidence.
Maybe it was just temporarily turning down the volume on my insecurity.
I did the rest.
That's a strange thing to realize when you've spent years believing you needed something outside yourself to become the person you wanted to be.
But growing older has some advantages.
You figure out what you actually like.
You figure out which people you want around you.
You become less interested in performing for strangers.
You become more comfortable being a little weird.
You stop worrying quite so much about whether everyone in the room approves of you.
And eventually you can walk into a bar and order something that doesn't contain alcohol without feeling like you've somehow opted out of the evening.
For me, that drink is a cranberry soda with lime.
My little fancy red drink.
And I love it.
It looks pretty.
It tastes good.
It feels festive.
And I can sit at the bar with everyone else, have a conversation, laugh, people-watch, and enjoy myself without needing the alcohol to do the heavy lifting.
Nobody cares what's in my glass.
That may be the strangest part.
For so long, I thought drinking was part of participating.
Now I realize participating was never about the drink.
It was about being there.
And I'm not interested in turning this into a morality tale.
I like wine.
I like having a glass with dinner.
I might have a drink sometimes.
I'm not declaring that alcohol is evil, and I'm certainly not here to tell anyone else what their relationship with it should be.
I'm just changing the job it has in my life.
It doesn't need to be my social lubricant.
It doesn't need to be my confidence.
It doesn't need to be my permission slip to have fun.
And if I could go back and sit beside my younger self for five minutes, I think I'd tell her something much simpler than don't drink.
I'd tell her:
You are already fun.
You don't need to get drunk enough to prove it.
You don't need to become louder to be interesting.
You don't need to chemically negotiate your entrance into a room.
And if you're going to drink, for the love of everything, have a plan.
Know how you're getting home.
Look after your friends.
Let your friends look after you.
And remember that the goal is to make memories you actually remember.
Because Auntie has some experience in this department.
Auntie has been Pukey.
Auntie has survived Spew Year's Eve.
Auntie has been carried out of a Pink concert and deposited into a bush.
Auntie has woken up alone on a bathroom floor in San Francisco and had a very serious conversation with herself.
Auntie has learned some things.
And now Auntie is sitting around Thanksgiving with the next generation, talking about moving across the country and whatever strange adventure comes next.
THANKSGIVING, 2025
Maybe that's the thing I like most about getting older.
You don't necessarily become a completely different person.
You just become more yourself.
The thirteen-year-old who wanted control of her own wardrobe eventually gets the wardrobe.
The awkward kid eventually figures out she doesn't need a drink to walk into a room.
The woman who once thought being fun meant getting completely wrecked eventually discovers that being fun is actually just… being there.
And sometimes being there looks like a bar stool, good conversation, and a little fancy red drink.
So go have fun.
Go dancing.
Stay out too late.
Laugh until your stomach hurts.
Make some questionable decisions that are actually recoverable.
Take care of your friends.
Let them take care of you.
And if you decide to drink, drink like you have to live with tomorrow's version of yourself.
Because you do.
And if you don't feel like drinking?
Order the cranberry soda.
Add the lime.
Make it fancy.
Nobody cares.
We have the technology.