Skeletons 1.9 – My Ridiculousness

This was originally published on Valentine’s Day 2018.

Ridiculousness: One drink is too many and a thousand is not enough.

Weddings. Oh how I love weddings. I’ve attended and/or participated in many but I’ve only NOT drank at 3 of them – 2 of them I wished I could drink and 1, the thought to drink didn’t even cross my mind. The rest though? The mere thought would have been laughable at the time.

Like bachelorette parties, weddings meant overshooting the mark with my alcohol consumption.  Well, except for my own wedding.

Seriously, it’s true. I don’t know how but I did NOT blackout or make a complete ass out of myself.  Nor did I wake up hungover. WHAT? I know…believe it!

As for the rest of the weddings I attended during my drinking career, there are a myriad of things I wish I didn’t do while bamboozled at these momentous occasions. Want me to share a few of them? Of course you do:

1) 2003 – Baltimore, MD: After an entire 6 pack of Michelob Ultra Lites to myself, I thought it was a good idea to spend money I did not have to follow my boyfriend (whom I had just broken up with) to a wedding on the east coast.  I was kicked out of the after party for being too intoxicated and not allowed back in. Ridiculous.

2) 2005 – San Diego, CA: At the reception, I confronted the maid of honor for something she said about me to her fiance (over the phone as I pretended to sleep) at the bachelorette party (the one of the two I had to remove myself from.) She wasn’t necessarily lying to him at the time but rather, gossiping and exaggerating something she got wind of which WAS true. Ridiculous. Hm, wait a sec. That sounds like something yours truly has been known to do in the past. I owe her an amends for that. **Update, I learned this woman is also in the program, I made amends and she quickly became one of my birdies**

3) 2006 – Lodi, CA: I brought an old guy friend as my date to a wedding. At the rehearsal dinner, I told everyone we were betrothed, practicing my would-be new signature on cocktail napkins. He never spoke to me again after that weekend.*Ridiculous.

4) 2009 – Breckinridge, CO: Newlyweds for 2 months, I shared an intimate moment with my husband (H) by the upstairs elevator in the reception hall and then yelled down to the crowded room below and told them what we had just done…(GASP!)…calm down, calm down, not a single person heard me…(PHEWF!)…seriously, not a single head turned in my direction, I remember…this was about 30 minutes before I entered a complete blackout. Not surprising considering I’m holding not one but 2 glasses of wine in this photo below. Still though, ridiculous.

Okay, one of them had to be H’s but I do not put it past me to have drank out of his as well just because I could.

5) 2011 – Rancho Santa Fe, CA: At the reception, someone asked me to help direct people to the “photo booth” so my drunk ass went and took the microphone from the DJ to direct everyone’s attention to ME instead…. “Heyyyyy, I just want everyone to know….” Ridiculous.

6) 2012 – Bend, OR: Took responsibility of a toddler because I deemed her parents too messed up to take care for her themselves. Meanwhile, I was also sneaking glasses of wine that I wasn’t supposed to be drinking and thinking it was perfectly acceptable to be the DD at the end of event. Ridiculous.

Crazy right? The more my alcoholism progressed, the more ridiculous I got.  Had things not gone down the way they had, I likely would have made even more of a spectacle of myself or worse, not made it to my cousin’s wedding at all.

Had I not accepted my alcoholism and remained a dry drunk, I would have attended with a chip on my shoulder and sat sulking in my “self-pity party of 1” making everyone around me uncomfortable. I’m so happy I finally chose recovery over misery because 6 years ago, I wanted no part of it.

One drink.

Just one.

That’s all it would take for me to lose EVERYTHING because of this one simple fact:

We are without defense against the first drink. (BB pg 24)

#morewillberevealed