Summer Made Me Miss It

I haven’t talked about alcohol in a while. But every time summer hits, something strange creeps back in. It’s in the heat, the long days, the way the light refuses to leave. It pulls up old memories like weeds. I’ve gone through the five stages of grief with alcohol, and these days I’ve mostly landed in acceptance.

But acceptance doesn’t mean I don’t still miss it sometimes. Or that I don’t still romanticize the good times. And there were a lot.

I think about those summer weekends when I’d post up outside all day, drinking from 12 p.m. straight through until I passed out. That makes me sound like an absolute degenerate when I say it outloud. Like, fully diabolically unwell. But some of those days? They were my absolute favorite. 

The second that first vodka soda started to hit, my whole body would light up. It felt like my veins were strung with fairy lights. That warm, buzzy rush was the highlight of my week. If I was lucky, it would last an hour. Maybe two. Then I would spend the rest of the day chasing it until everything got blurry and eventually I would black out. Eight times out of ten, something chaotic would happen. But somehow, I still remember it fondly. The bad parts felt few and far between.

Still, they were good days. Or at least, that’s how my memory has chosen to keep them. And sure, I could list all the ways sobriety has made my life better. But that’s not really the point of this post.

It’s one of the first warm Saturdays of the season, and I’m sitting with all these leftover feelings that don’t know where else to go.  The sun is hitting just right. It’s finally warm enough that I don’t need a blanket, which feels like a miracle because I’m basically cold blooded.  The sky looks like it’s been filtered through nostalgia, soft and glowing, almost fake.  I’m sipping lemon water and pretending it’s a cocktail, hoping it’ll spark something close to the charge I used to feel.

I’ve cleaned. I’ve gotten stuff done. But even when I try to relax, my mind won’t shut the hell up. I keep thinking about the trip I’m taking next week. I have a weird tickle in my throat and now I’m convinced I’m getting sick. I’m catastrophizing a little, but quietly.

When I used to drink, those thoughts didn’t even make it to the surface. I was just in it. Present, in a chemically altered kind of way. Drinking turned the volume down on everything. And as much as I hate giving it credit, I still haven’t found anything else that quiets the noise like that.

Well, besides sleep. But I mean something that doesn’t require being fully unconscious. I wish I had. I’ve tried the exercise classes, the supplements, and the mood-boosting smoothies I saw on Instagram. Still, nothing hits quite like alcohol did. And I kind of hate that.

Life is hard. And sure, drinking brings temporary joy, but it’s not exactly a long-term solution. I keep wondering when I’ll finally be able to sit still without needing a distraction. No music, no endorphin rush, no mindless scrolling on TikTok. Just me, alone, and actually okay with it.

I don’t miss the hangovers. But I do miss the ability to tune out. Not having to be “on” all the time was an underrated perk of being drunk.

I don’t miss every moment. I don’t miss the anxiety of sitting through dinner drunk, trying to seem sober. Or timing my exits just right so I wouldn’t have to see the look on anyone’s face when they realized how far gone I was. Half the time, the Irish exits didn’t happen. I’d end up embarrassing myself anyway.

I don’t miss pining after people who didn’t care about me. I used to run entire fantasy scenarios in my head about how the night would unfold. It was never about what actually happened. It was the anticipation. The possibility. Especially when I drank alone, I convinced myself the night was going to be magical. That I’d find my soulmate, or my life’s purpose, or at the very least a really good story, somewhere at the bottom of the bottle.

But it rarely showed up.

When I started writing this, I was really missing drinking. I had accepted I could never go back to it, but I was still giving it credit for a kind of happiness it never fully delivered. It just made the days go by faster, especially the ones I couldn’t remember.

But now, I see it differently.

We have so much time, and somehow no time at all, depending on how we spend it. Alcohol used to fill the space when I didn’t know what else to do with it. Maybe now it’s about learning to stay. To stop numbing. To start noticing. To be here, even when it’s boring or raw or wildly uncomfortable.

I’ve been practicing that for almost three years now. And still, some days I feel like a beginner. Maybe that’s what sobriety really is. Not some polished transformation, but a constant remembering. A willingness to meet yourself, over and over again, without the buffer.

Even when it hurts. Even when it haunts you. Even when it’s quiet.