It’s Friday night. I’m sitting here with a big glass of Pinot. My dog is cuddled up next to me, and I’m waiting for the hubs to bring home dinner – pizza pie! THIS is my favorite time of day – wine o’clock. Last year, at my physical, I decided to be honest. On the line of the health history form that asks you to describe your alcohol consumption, I wrote, “one glass of wine daily.” In the past, I’d always just marked “Social Drinker.” The doctor read it and said, “So a glass of wine daily, right?’ with no tone of judgment. My reaction was a bit of a knee-jerk. “That’s right,” I replied defensively, “I’m a public school teacher and THAT is how I keep from losing my shit!” “Ooookay,” she said. In truth, I was only partially honest. Sometimes I have two big glasses. Sometimes I have one and some tequila drinks. It all depends on how many times I had a kindergartener throw himself on the floor in a tantrum or had two 5 year-olds have an octagon style throw-down over crayons or how many time I had my boob/butt patted to get my attention. In other words, it’s kinda like a teacher drinking game that I play when I get home.

I come from a looong line of people who like…and I mean really like…their drink. My paternal great-grandmother kept a cask of moonshine on her porch. She defiantly sold it by the cup…during prohibition. Of course, it helped that her son was the chief of police and most of the town was related to her. Some of my earliest memories of my mother’s family gatherings feature the most popular adult beverages of the time. I knew them all. What’s Uncle Howard got there? Oh, that’s a Harvey Wallbanger. What’s grandma drinking? Well, she made a big Tupperware container of Screwdriver and froze into a slushie! Grandma could never babysit on New Year’s Eve. She and her boyfriend always went bar hopping that night. My Aunt Char had her wedding reception in the fire hall next to my grandma’s house. “Oh, we can’t have alcohol in here? No problem! We’ll just set up the bar over in Mom’s garage.” One Christmas, Aunt Elaine gave everyone homemade Kahlua. Family reunions were always B.Y.O.B. (bring your own booze). That usually led to various family members getting into arguments, fist fights, engaging in expectedly inaccurate target shooting, and of course, the occasional random rifle shot into the night sky. I remember being surprised when my childhood friends didn’t know what a Whiskey Sour was or when their parents didn’t have a bar or liquor cabinet in their house. I thought everybody’s family was like mine.

Surprisingly, my first experience with drinking didn’t happen until the eve of my sixteenth birthday. What can I say? I was just an anxiety-riddled “good girl” who was too much of an emotional wreck to risk what little regard her parents had for her by engaging in underage drinking. The night before my sixteenth birthday, my “worldly” friend Kristen, who attended a fancy prep school on the East Coast, came to pick me. Maintaining an illusion of innocence, I bid my folks adieu and slipped into her junky brown Toyota Corolla hatchback. Away we drove. “Where are we going?” I asked her. “Not far,” she replied, smiling. We drove just a few streets over, to an area of my neighborhood that was under development. It was filled with partially constructed houses and was, largely, unoccupied. She parked the car in a remote corner of the area, reached into the back seat, and produced a bottle of Asti Spumanti and a bottle of Boones Farm. I know, right? You’d think a girl of her breeding would’ve made some classier selections, huh? The inexperienced drinker that I was didn’t know any better though, and it didn’t really matter anyway. These would serve the purpose and would’ve been enough for even the most seasoned drinker to have a pretty good time. Having been away at prep school, of course, Kristen had more experience drinking than I did. Actually, she had more experience with just about everything – booze, drugs, sex – everything. My world was tiny compared to hers. The only alcohol I had ever consumed prior to that night was a teensy bit of Kahlua during a slumber party I’d hosted one night when my parents went out and my siblings went to stay with my grandparents. This ridiculous adolescent “girls night” also included a viewing of “American Gigolo.” We’d heard that there was a scene showing male “full frontal,” and we were determined to find out what all the fuss was about. Since my family had HBO, fate made me hostess. None of us had much more than a nip of my aunt’s homemade coffee concoction that night, and the much-anticipated “full frontal” was disappointing. On my sweet sixteenth birthday, I was ready to take it up a few notches and do some big girl drinking.

Kris handed me the Asti. “This is for you since you’re the birthday girl,” she laughed. I might’ve been an inexperienced drinker, but, even at the tender age of sixteen, I was a bit of a baby badass. I’m Ancestry DNA certified Irish, see, so, I have a legit genetic claim to my ability to hold my liquor well – and hence the aforementioned familial propensity for it. And though I had never even laid a finger on a bottle of it before, that champagne cork wasn’t even a challenge. Kris looked impressed by my prowess. “Damn!” she exclaimed. Over the next few hours, we talked and drank and talked. She said she’d learned not to drink on a completely empty stomach, so she’d brought a couple snacks – a single bag of peanut M&M’s and some Corn Nuts. Trusting her wisdom, I picked the Corn Nuts for my entrée. We continued to drink and laugh and sing along to the radio. Somehow, the racket we were making didn’t disturb the occupants of the nearest house. If it had, we surely would’ve wound up with a police escort home. Once I’d polished off my bottle, she started the car. “Let’s get you home, “ she said. Okay. In hindsight, all of this was a series of truly terrible decisions on so many, many levels. While I’m fairly certain that Kris wasn’t nearly as drunk as I was, she wasn’t sober either, and yet she drove. Yes, she only had to drive a couple of streets over, but it was just dumb luck that nothing happened on that short drive back to my house. I dunno. Perhaps there was a guardian angel looking out for me that night, but it would not be the last time I did something so dangerously stupid and remain unharmed by it.

My dad was still up when we got home. Somehow we managed to get to my room without Dad detecting our intoxication…or so I thought. Before we both passed out on the bed, I distinctly remember thinking, “Man, this is the best feeling EVER!” Kris woke up at some point in the middle of the night, shook my shoulder, and said, “I gotta get back home before my mom gets up.” I nodded, groggily. I awoke a couple hours later, decidedly not feeling “the best feeling ever” anymore. And, just so you know, puking Corn Nuts made me unable to eat them again for, like, thirty years. In retrospect, my folks probably knew what I’d done. For one, I’m pretty sure they heard me in the bathroom being sick at 5 a.m. Second, it was super weird that my mom insisted on taking me to the mall to get my birthday present the next day. My mom worked at the mall and, normally, it was the last place she wanted to be on her day off. I think she thought the idea of going to the mall, feeling as sick as I did, might lead me to confess, beg to not go, and plead for forgiveness…you know, to “teach me a lesson.” I didn’t do too much drinking for a while after that.

Once I became an adult and a legal drinker, I only ever drank socially – out after work with the girls, at parties, on New Year’s Eve. I was pretty poor back then, so I really couldn’t afford to buy my own booze, and I mainly mooched off other people in those circumstances. Once I had kids, I almost never drank. I know right? It seems like that would’ve been the time I had the most reason to drink! Oh, I sometimes had a wine cooler or Zima on the rare occasions when we went to a restaurant or on New Year’s Eve. But most of the time I was just too busy being a mom. When I got divorced and my children and I moved in with my parents, I discovered that, once my younger brother and sister had finally moved out, my mom had begun a very particular Friday night routine after work. It was heralded by Todd Rundgren’s “Bang on My Drum” played precisely at 5:01 p.m. on her favorite radio station and consisted of feasting on an array of snacks, watching her favorite Friday night sitcoms, and drinking a big blender full of strawberry daiquiris. It was absolutely adorable. Here was this tiny little old lady rocking out to Todd Rundgren and blowin’ off steam after a hard week in the customer service department at JC Penney by getting her “drank” on! It looked liked fun. So, as a stressed out divorced, unemployed 33-year-old teacher intern raising two school-age children on her own, I was happy to join her in this weekly ritual when she invited me. Also around this time, my mother took an interest in wine and had found a local winery that she adored. She had a case of her favorite varietal shipped to the house monthly. It would’ve been rude to turn down her offer to share a bottle. And thus began my own relationship with the blessed fruit-of-the-vine, my beloved vino.

When we first met, my husband was not a drinker…at all. In fact, as unbelievable as it sounds, he made it well past 40 without ever having consumed alcohol. The reason stems from the traumatic interactions he’d had with his substance-abusing father while growing up. The smell of both alcohol and marijuana once induced extreme feelings of stress and anxiety for him. In the early days of our relationship, I had no idea about the depth of his reaction, and on one of our first dates, I asked if he minded if I had a glass of wine with my dinner. He told me that he didn’t, yet, after my first sip, his entire demeanor changed. It was then that I decided I loved this man more than I loved my wine. I went for years without drinking. Weeeell, I would occasionally hide a bottle of my favorite varietal in a cooler in the garage and enjoy it…on the down low…while watching my Britcoms when he had to work late. My husband’s feelings about alcohol intensified when a drunk driver killed my oldest daughter. So, it was amazing to me, a few years later, when he showed an interest in drinking wine “for the health benefits.” As you can imagine, I was only too happy to help him satisfy his curiosity. Yes, dear readers, I unfolded my arm, apple in hand, and extended an invitation as the serpent whispered in my ear, “Yeeesss! Go on! Do it!” And thus began my husband’s relationship with “demon” alcohol. I admit it. I corrupted him and officially earned my “Eve” card in doing so. Sadly, it was my only option since I never had the opportunity to take a man’s virginity. Well. Okay. I did have an opportunity. I just couldn’t close the deal. Sigh!

I could see it in my mind – St. Peter shaking his head and making a “tsk, tsk, tsk” sound as he crossed my name off the list. I’m not gonna lie. There are days when I feel guilty as fuck for corrupting my husband. Buuuut, man, do we have a goooood time now on Friday nights when we eat pizza and watch our Alaska shows on Discovery channel and DRANK! My little old mama had it right, y’all, and so did all those people in my drinkin’-fightin’-law breakin’ lineage. Life is short. Grasp those moments. Watch shitty TV for the sheer mindless pleasure of it. Eat the things you love, even if they aren’t “healthy”…sometimes. And don’t be ashamed to pop those bottles and DRANK! Just don’t drive when you do. Okay, playah?