I didn't have a "scared straight" moment with booze, thanks in part to the off switch that kept me from drinking too much and getting in trouble. Lake Charles, Louisiana was the low point of my drinking, but I didn't stop entirely because frankly, I enjoy a few different forms of alcohol and the buzz one or two drinks gives me. 

As I write this, my heart speeds up and I feel defensive. I feel like an alcoholic justifying his behavior, giving the "See, it doesn't really affect me that much" speech. And maybe that's true. Maybe I'll come back to the labyrinth in a few years and say "Hey folks, I've given it up now for real." 

But as of this writing, I haven't. Four nights out of seven I'll have a nightcap––a glass of wine, or a vodka with lime, or a bottle of hard cider (no more beer for me). One of those nights I'll have two drinks, usually with my honey after the kids have gone to bed. 

Does that qualify me as an alcoholic? Does anything but completely abstaining from alcohol make me an alcoholic? That's what worries me––if I'm so close to the edge genetically that I can't drink anything at all, ever. When I say to myself "I can drink a little because I'm under control," the other voice comes out and says "That's just alcoholism talking, man! You're self-justifying!" 

When I say "Shit, Steve, you got to stop drinking anything," the other voice says "Dude, what are you freaking out about? Don't you think there'd be signs if you had a real problem?" 

So it's an endless internal debate, and frankly it's kinda boring. Usually I stand right in the middle of that debate and continue with my normal habit of having a drink with my wife or the friends we have over for dinner, or even just to wind down. The times I have a drink to relax or celebrate don't bother me, but every once in awhile I'll sense a hint of aggression in my drinking. My jaw gets set and I pour a drink (usually mixed, with rum or vodka in it) in an escapist and/or self-punishing mood, as in:

• too many kids around––gotta run away! or
  
• if I have to deal with one more bullshit detail that somebody else has forgotten, I'm gonna put my head through a wall! or
  
• what the fuck has gone wrong in my life?
  

then I know I'm barking up the wrong tree and using alcohol in the wrong spirit. Then I remember a song by 10,000 Maniacs with the line that says:

"The drink you drown your troubles in 

is the trouble you're in now"

and I down my drink anyway, though with a tiny bit more awareness than I used to have of how that drink it destroying me. But does that awareness even matter? Or is it a smokescreen, a line of bullshit I feed myself so I can go on living exactly as I have been without making the hard changes that will truly alter my being?

I dunno. It's an endless struggle, a perpetual question. A background motif in the symphony of my life. Maybe I'll get used to its sound, or maybe I'll strip it from the score someday. Who knows. To be determined.