All too often I find myself in positions where, in that moment, I’m fully aware I’m going to regret it the next morning. Working from home, I don’t get a ton of social interaction. So by the time my day is done I’m overcome with the urge to go out and mingle. Living in the city, going out to mingle is pretty damn easy… but there’s always alcohol involved.
Because I want to have human contact, and because I don’t have friends that live nearby, I ultimately end up at a bar. I go for a “beer or two” or to “go watch the game” and, of course, to chat with “friends”. Three o’clock in the morning later I find that I’m about $80.00 shy in my account, several brain cells in the negative, an expanding gut, and a worried girlfriend.
Now I have work in about 5 hours. Fuck.
As my day proceeds and memories from the evening before flash back. I find that I’m mad about spending so much money. I’m frustrated because the “friends” I was with don’t care about me until it’s time to go drinking again. I feel like I’ve lowered my standards as a human being, and I spend the rest of the day kicking myself for it. Well, until I go meet my friends for a beer or two.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
So it occurs to me that regretting what I did the night before obviously doesn’t keep me from doing it again. Am I moron? Do I lack the capability to learn from my mistakes? In my opinion, yes and no respectively. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again while expecting different results. So if I’m not a moron, I’m certainly caught in a crazy loop. And somehow it seems the regret is fueling this cycle in stead of sticking me with the notion that I should fucking stop.
In thinking about this, I’m forming the opinion that my need to interact socially outweighs the regret I feel from being a drunk ass. Given that we’re social creatures, trying to stamp out that desire is likely to be as successful as mating with a populated bee hive. So what about going to do something that doesn’t involve drinking? Well that’s likely just as expensive, less prevalent, and it’s apparently not what adults do. Which sucks.
So instead of regretting my actions, or trying to find alternatives, I’m looking at attempting to deal with the core issues: a) I want social interaction, and b) I’m apparently not ok with being alone. Maybe they’re actually the same problem and I’m just trying to make it out to be more than what it is. The brain is good at reasoning away from real problems. Between the 2 “options”, my gut is leaning towards option B.
On the nights I’m alone I tend to grab some beer from the corner store, when I could be doing something constructive like sleeping. My drive to be creative is greatly diminished in lieu of financial and personal stress… On the other hand, if I have an addictive personality, maybe I should buy a game console. I don’t play video games because I’m worried I’ll get nothing else done… because, you know, I’m getting so much more accomplished by going to the bar and draining my already abysmal bank account.
Since I've Been Here 