HOW TO: drink during a Pandemic
Dear Raquel,
I used to drink on nights out with friends and I’m missing it! Should I drink alone at home? How much is too much?
Sincerely,
Stone Cold Sober,
Dear Stone Cold Sober,
Hate to make this about me, but less than two weeks into quarantine, I ran out of coffee and wine. Fresh off a Tiger King binge, I briefly entertained the idea of homemade meth — but I’m an awful cook.
The reliance on substances is nothing new to me. Not to brag, but in high school I had a bit of a binge-drinking habit, regularly blacking out in my bedroom and stumbling to parties in random farmer fields (small town probs, amirite) were a weekly occurrence from 2009–2011. But as I matured I grew out of that girl who was simply drinking to work up the courage to T9 text random guys on her pink LG slider, blurring the chaos of her home life.
I still like to get wild, but it’s much more sophisticated these days. I traded in the Coca Cola and Rye, low rise Guess jeans and popped collar bench coats for vodka sodas with lime in leather jackets and Urban Outfitters Chelsea boots. I’m a lady!
As the product of a long line of alcoholics and addicts, naturally, I like a good mood-altering substance. Drinking is the most socially acceptable one, of course. Plus, it’s reasonably affordable when you’re uncultured like me and your favourite wine is $10 bucks and comes in a box.
Despite an affinity for alcohol, it’s always been a social thing. Thankfully, despite my pickled genes, I’m not my Grandfather (God rest him) drinking myself into a stupor alone at two in the afternoon and launching himself down the stairs (by accident!), or my Mother, getting lit on Yellowtail Shiraz and impulse buying makeup from the Avon catalogue.
Prior to COVID, I would rarely even have alcohol on hand in my house. It was something purchased once in a while and only if I was heading to a specific event.
Often I would swig shots of vodka — as many as I could gulp down before someone called an Uber (which wasn’t many because have you tasted Vodka? It’s poison) and I’d leave the remainder at whoever’s house I was congregating in. Do you remember that? Awkwardly standing among 10+ people all in one confined area? They were called “pre-drinks” sometimes “house parties.”
Quick refresher: basically, you’d show up to a home with an LCBO brown bag of booze, and you’d spend two hours standing in the corner, only talking to the friends you came with, drinking to numb your social anxiety and drunk texting your other friends who weren’t there to tell them how bored you were. Those were the rules back then — I didn’t make them up!
Anyway, I never thought twice about the leftover alcohol — I didn’t need it anymore after all. The party was done, the host could have it.
When it became clear that everything I knew and loved was about to shut down indefinitely (read: all non-essential businesses, which as it turns out, were the only things making my life worth living) I bolted to the Wine Rack across the street. Because let me be clear: if the world is catapulting toward it’s fiery end (and I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure it is) I want to be loaded for the crash.
I loved wine back when it wasn’t illegal to sit in a restaurant with other human beings, so I bought a box and three bottles — thinking it would last me at least a couple months of isolation. If you aren’t a wine connoisseur like I am, then you may not know that a cardboard box of wine holds about six (6!!!) full bottles of vino.
At this point, I had spent about four days working from home at my makeshift standing desk, using a step stool and stack of books, catching one too many glimpses of my acneic, makeup-free face in the mirror while I click-clacked away. I’d had enough of this sad, sad, sober scene and thought a little Bodacious Smooth Blend could numb the panic of an uncertain world, a ghost town city and a blotchy face in dire need of some CC Cream and a dusting of bronzer.
And let me tell you. While drinking alone has never been my forte, the wine helped…A LOT.
BUY! THE! WINE! Or the Vodka! Or the Gin! Or the Cider! Support local, if you can. If it were 2012 I would buy cases of beer from a local brewery FER SHER, but I’m not slamming back 11 beers and prank calling my ex boyfriends anymore so that’s not an option for me. But I love it and want it for YOU, if that’s your thing.
I recommend, starting with one, mature glass. Pour the appropriate number of ounces, sit sophistically on your couch and eat a salad or something. Pretend you’re just a civilized homebody. Let the alcohol convince you that your current situation — at home on a Friday night watching toothless rednecks talk about tigers — is a Goddamn CHOICE. Girlfrand, you WANT to be here, buzzing and eating your greens like the real life adult you are. Put a bra on maybe, make it a night to remember.
Personally, I felt almost chic on my first at-home-alone-binge-drink. The light buzz made me forget that I was actually an unhinged, anxiety-ridden 27-year old whose OCD and co-dependency issues were FLARING amidst global panic. I was also still delusional at this point and thought we’d be released by Easter. Aha ha ha.
Drinking alone is okay, but drinking with friends is better. Use your employers unlimited Zoom account to set up a call with your friends and glug away.
Life is short (but also kinda long) and oftentimes really, really hard! Being a little tuned up for it helps.
