Experience - Physical Chastity - Week 1

Next to the ‘Social’ assignment, this one was the most difficult, and I pretty well failed it fantastically. Not because I’m some raging lush or something, but because there is caffeine or alcohol in one form or another in SO many things—especially when you are sick, as I have been pretty much this entire week. Monday night alone, when I was just starting to feel ill at Brad’s house, I decided to try drinking a Dr. Enuf (hoping that would settle my stomach). Turns out? Dr. Enuf has caffeine in the ingredients. I did dump it out once I realized this, but I had already drunk most of the bottle.

Then there is the medication I have been taking. Most of it is in pill form, and all of it is over-the-counter—though I am not sure if medication alone qualifies as an intoxicant, and even if it does, fuck that. I feel like crap, and I am taking the damn pills! Anyway, pills aside, certain medicines (like night-time cough syrup) have alcohol in them. It is minimal, only about 10%, but still…rules are rules. And honestly, considering how terrible I am STILL feeling after almost a full week, I do not even know if it was worth breaking them. However, to pretend my illness was the only reason I broke the rules would be frankly, a lie.

While at Brad’s apartment Monday night, I forgot about the prohibition on alcohol for this week, and when offered—rather forcefully—some wine, I accepted. It was only a glass, and it was not exceptionally high in alcoholic content (or exceptionally good), but it was still wine. It was not until later that night I remembered, but it was too late. Beyond that one glass, however, and the cough medicine, I have done remarkably well to keep with the rules. I do not exactly start each day off with a Mimosa, but I do enjoy more than one glass of wine a week, on average, and the odd beer and hard liquor.

I guess what I have learned from all this is, even if one is not an alcoholic, or drug abuser, we are still, as a people inundated with intoxicants. Caffeine especially seems to find its way into places it has no business being, and alcohol (especially for those of legal drinking age) barely makes a blip on the radar.