Virtual Cheers and other Thoughts...

Beer is a social drink.
Most beer drinkers I know like to drink with other people, it enhances what's in your glass and it makes life a little better for everyone.
Right now, that is all gone, save for the virtual meet-ups on your computer and while that seems to be fine in the short term, I wonder about the mental health implications of a long term physical distancing and how that will play out as the days become weeks become months.
  Personally I have long preferred to drink alone, finding my consumption far less when I am not in a social situation, a huge reversal of the party animal I was not so many years ago. But even I am feeling the pinch of not being able to stop into Clifford Brewing just because I want a pint and some friendly conversations or hitting up Merit, Collective Fairweather or Grain & Grit to chat with my Hamilton friends. There is a feeling of community that you can't quite replicate on Zoom or FaceTime and while we know we must stay home to do our part in flatteneing the curve, it does begin to weigh on your mind. Hyper vigilance aside, the monotony of life spent trying to keep yourself distanced from the world is something that surely leads to more drinking than less. I did an online poll at the beginning of the isolation and it was pretty evenly split between folks drinking the same anmount and those who felt their consumption had risen. To do it again, I would imagine that those numbers would now skew to the latter as boredom, terror and a combination of the two take hold.
  When Jinx passed away in the early part of the year, I had a couple of bad days followed by a whole lot of heavy nights where I sat and drank and drank and drank. A response to grief I hadn't felt in a long time and I was able to grasp hold to myself and regain my footing, but not without a real look into the deepest flaws of my character and self control.
  Covid-19 is a whole different game. This isn't a life event that you learn to live with it, time helping to heal your wounds, living in a new normal, not quite right but living with hope once again. This current pandemic has stopped our economy, frozen lives in place, ripped socializing from our lives and left a gaping hole in what used to be normalcy. Abnormal is the new normal and if you're on day 10 of self isolation, who cares if you're cracking into your first beer at 10 a.m.? Like you got something better to do. Or maybe you are still working and that stress is driving you to open the second bottle of wine after a particularly bad day. These thoughts cross my mind all the time and I will be the first person to tell you that it is very easy to let 1 beer turn into 6 and let the world slip away far too many nights in the last 3 weeks. I try to limit myself to just one pint as much as possible, but to honest, when I am 2 feet from people taking their orders all day and shoulder to shoulder with my co workers in the kitchen, hoping everyone is following the rules to stay home if they are ill, I need a couple of beers or a few glasses of wine to take the edge off at the end of my workday. Is it healthy? Well, I know it isn't, but my mental health says "Fuck it" and here we are.
  Staying sober is not an option for me, it isn't something I desire, but I do understand that my relationship with alcohol is complicated, deserving of some serious introspection and maybe when life turns a corner and we see a glimpse of freedom I will deal with it. I know we need to be steady during this crisis, we need to be there for our families and our friends, as best we can at a distance, and losing yourself in a drunken stupor isn't gonna help anyone. I know this is disjointed at best, the struggle for coherence finds me swinging from one edge to the other, hoping I don't fall off. I guess I hope this reaches someone who feels like I do, adrift amongst the world, unsure what is the next move and hoping everyone you know and love comes out the other side of this in one piece, sane and healthy.
 But having a couple of pints, taking the edge off a chaotic time in world history? I say do what makes you happy, stay safe and stay the fuck home if you can. Be kind to yourself if you screw up, forgive someone else if they do and remember to say "I love you" when you can.
 


Love,
Polk