I have nothing against alcohol.  Alcohol and I?  We're friends.  We've been great friends and not-so-great friends.

I remember my first beer.  I was in high school.  It was a Miller High Life, the Champagne of Beers.  I was in the backseat of a car.  The front seats were occupied by two Harvard students, one of which I was intent on impressing.  I didn't mention that I'd never had a beer before, that I was uncomfortable with idea of breaking so many little laws in such quick succession.  Infatuation and my not-yet-fully-developed teenage brain were working against common sense.

Nothing happened.

I didn't spew beer-laden vomit all over the seat, I didn't have barely-remembered intimacies with the Harvard student, I didn't get into a motor vehicle accident.  I just drank my beer and parted ways with the older fellows.

Since then, I've gone the normal course that I think most of my peers have traveled.  The college nights of heavy drinking, the random bouts of memory-loss.  Parties.  Dates.  Breakups.  And then the switch flips and I'm okay.  I don't want a beer for the better part of a year.  I'm not making any mixers as we sit down to watch a movie.  It's just alcohol.  Empty calories and a dehydrated brain.

As this fitness thing (a "lifestyle change", as D calls it), has taken over more and more of my life, I'm not really interested in drinking.  I went out recently with some girlfriends.  I had a couple drinks as I watched them get sloshed.  I was more interested in having a good time than having a good time.  Does that make sense?  I wanted to remember the interactions we were having, I wanted to build on the relationships, rather than have drunken memories and possibly throw up on someone.  Again.

And now that I'm making these decisions not to put myself in positions where I'm going to be surrounded by people, coercing me into throwing away the hard work for that day or that week and all the issues that come with it, I'm getting flack.  Jesus.  I feel like a born-again Christian.  Don't get me wrong:  after a soccer game, I want nothing more than to get a big ol' 32 oz Miller Lite.  And, because I've just burned a thousand calories in an hour, I do.  And I love it.  But it doesn't get me sloshed and I don't have more than that one giant beer.

But the flack I'm getting.  Is there nothing else for people to do than to hang out and drink?  Half the time, my husband isn't even invited to these social affairs.  Why the fuck would I want to continuously go somewhere that he can't?  I married him for a reason.  I like his company.  I like spending time with him.  And, bottom line, he's going to win every single fucking time.  Is it just me?  Are my expectations too high?  Is it too much to want people to engage in some activity, rather than throw money into sugar and alcohol?  What happened to going to dinner, to the movies, to bowl?  Do I have to order rounds, sneak in a flask or buy a pitcher in order to get people to join us?

Ugh.  I am going to end up hanging out with the religious people because they can have a good time without getting snockered.