I drank again (again)

It’s strange how ordering a pint at the pub always feels like pulling on an old coat. Idly, I peruse the food menu, making chitchat that I don’t care for with the landlady about her new dog. She pours the first drops of forbidden nectar, none the wiser to the chaos she’s about to transact. I wait for her to shove a ‘Wanted’ poster in my face, for the AA police to storm in and snap my debit card in half. My friend deliberates over which packet of crisps to buy. Old men peer at the football scores behind us. I breathe in the heady combination of hops and what should be regret. Nothing happens.

I wasn’t supposed to drink until 6:30 pm - not that I was supposed to drink at all - but this was a premeditated shitshow that had been decided upon three nights earlier, where I’d smugly drained a singular glass of Rioja. I was cured. Nothing was stopping me from making a reservation at a wine and cheese night when I got home from Madrid. Excitement at its normalcy trumped any semblance of reality. It was 3 pm, sunny, and my old favourite spot in the beer garden was free.

For a few hours, it plays out like those dreamy boozy afternoon vignettes: a few more cheeky pints, talking about nothing important for hours, my sister joining for a game of Monopoly Deal. And it’s all so fucking gloriously easy. I don’t chew words around my mouth or swallow my thoughts; I listen and speak at what feels to be the perfect intervals, without meta-analysing every move.

Suddenly, it is 6:30 pm, I’ve necked four pints, and it’s becoming starkly apparent that I’m also a day off my anti-psychotic medication, with which I’ve also decided to don an armchair Psychology degree and wean myself off. Sans medical intervention. I’m watching the owner of the wine and cheese bar talk us through our platter, descriptions of Red Leicesters and kalamata olives fighting against the blackout threatening to billow over my consciousness.

After a short burst of mental nothingness, which actually transpired to be about an hour and a half, I’m back in the room. I’m standing up near the till, talking to the owner of the wine bar. What are we talking about? It’s all too fuzzy. I seem very fucking sure of myself, though, whatever we’re talking about, gesticulating towards her with an almost empty glass of wine.

Wait, hold the fucking phone… what am I doing now?