In it, I sit, looking glowing and composed, always smiling and carefree. The fantasy finds me in different places. I might be on a chair on a restaurant patio, on a lounger on a deck, sitting on a dock at the lake, reclining poolside, or in someone's backyard... all locales in keeping with the theme of summer. I might be anywhere, but I am always with others in the fantasy, and always with a glass of wine in hand. It might be a refreshing, crisp, cool white. It could be a lighter red that I'm nursing, fingers lightly caressing the stem of a wine glass as I elegantly bring the glass to my lips.
In the fantasy, I feel the wine start to take effect, do its magic. My worries begin to shrink, receding somewhere further back in my brain. My normally overthinking mind slows down its rapid pace and a fuzzy stillness creeps in to take its place. The fuzziness extends to my body; I become loose, languid, light. I am, in that moment, at one with my surroundings, intimately connected to my companions. I feel fabulous.
The fantasy is a snapshot of a moment in time, never more than that. If it were any longer, it wouldn't be a fantasy of course. Real-time couldn't support it. Playing the fantasy forward a few hours longer to push it into the realm of the real would definitely find the story significantly altered, likely for the worse. I know this. That is why I like to keep it as a snapshot instead. Lately though, I've been trying to figure out how I could stretch the fantasy, push it into the land of the real, but without the ramifications that real-life wine drinking has often brought to me. How I could live the fantasy out in real life... on the dock, the deck, the patio. How I could, in short, moderate.
I've been trying to figure this out because I am coming to the end of my experiment, so I am wondering what's next for me? Thinking back on my life, I have many, many memories of good times where alcohol was involved, times that didn't find me in rough shape emotionally, mentally and physically the next day. There were also many times when I could moderate, when it wasn't a big deal to "only have 2". I only had a problem with binge-drinking sometimes or often, not always. Because of this, it is easier for me to latch on to the responsible-drinking memories than it might be perhaps for someone who found moderation impossible on all occasions. Because of this, it is easy to push away the memories of drinking escapades gone bad. Because of this, I begin to wonder if I could, realistically, sit on the patio, perfectly composed, smiling and healthy, wine in hand, and stop at two once my experiment ends?
I already know the answer. Yes of course I could moderate. For sure, I could do it for a time. But could I do it forever? Should I try in order to find out? Or should I continue on this alcohol-free path and see where it finds me? Would resuming drinking basically mean throwing away all of the gains I've made in my life over the past year? And if so, why would I do that? Perhaps an honest look at what those gains have been is in order?
I know that the main reason I am even considering inviting alcohol back into my life is the moderation fantasy growing ever larger, it seems, by the day. What I need is a reality check in order to balance out that perfect picture, that snapshot, that won't quit. And suddenly, there it is, something I've read about that describes the state in which I am finding myself: Euphoric Recall. Wikipedia tells me it is "a psychological term for the tendency of people to remember past experiences in a positive light, while overlooking negative experiences associated with that event". I begin to see that this is a powerful case of "euphoric recall" that is tugging at me and won't let up. It is an actual thing, a term, created because other people have experienced this. It is real. It has a name. It was masquerading as a fantasy all along, but now I can see it for what it is. Now I know what it is I need to conquer...
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