Once in a while, out to dinner at a “nice” place, I will order a Margarita. More precisely, far less than half of the time, when we go out to a nice place to have dinner, which is not that often, I’ll have an alcoholic drink. I just don’t drink much.

Probably, I average around a dozen or so adult beverages spread out over a year. Not evenly spaced, one month I might have a couple adult beverages, not in the same night of course, and then not have another for several months. On average, I just don’t drink much.

As a kid, I was allowed sips of what the adults around me were having. From then until this day, in my opinion, wine and beer taste bad. Yes’ I’ve tasted both beer and wine over the years since then and they are just as foul tasting as they were when I was a kid.

Linda would just love it if I liked wine. Admittedly, it would be lovely to share wine with her. Yet, to me, wine tastes bitter and beer tastes worse. Not liking the taste is not the only reason I don’t drink much.

On June 1, 1973 the legal drinking age in Minnesota was lowered from 21 to 18. I was, at the time, nineteen, working as a pizza cook at Cicero’s Pizza in Har Mar Mall. Several of my coworkers and myself were suddenly legal, we would go across the parking lot to the Ground Round for a drink after work.

I would order a whiskey and seven-up. After hours in front of a pizza oven I would be thirsty, pretty much I just drank that whiskey-seven down. There was conversation, fun, stories were told, I’d order another. Having a good time and I would order another. Repeat. They closed at 1:00 am.

One night, I decided to put the stir sticks from my drinks into my shirt pocket. The next morning I had like seven stir sticks in my pocket. I would have told you I had three drinks, not seven.

Maybe somebody put a couple extra stir sticks in my pocket, so I repeated this experiment several times. We only drank from 11:30 to 1:00 AM, an hour and a half. I was drinking something like one drink every fifteen – twenty minutes. Consistently I had a couple more stir sticks than I had intended to have drinks.

In my head, the lesson of the stir sticks was about me lacking the self control to limit my drinking. Two drinks in an hour and a half might be reasonable. Consistently drinking two or three times that and not realizing you had, is not something to be proud of.

By nineteen I’d seen some young men do bad stuff while drunk. As I’ve aged I’ve come to know people, men and women, of all ages often do bad things while drunk. My guess is almost every adult personally has seen bad stuff happen resulting from a person being drunk.

Here I am, fifty plus years later. I never quit drinking altogether. I have been drunk a couple times over the decades but only a couple. For example, on a four day trip to Mexico like thirty-five years ago, I drank a lot. There is no way I would have joined the conga line at Senor Frogs if I wasn’t drunk. However the bottom line is, I don’t drink much.

I was nineteen when I decided not to drink much. Whether or not I would have become an alcoholic had I not decided to not drink much is sort of academic at this point. Yet, I do not regret my decision to voluntarily not to drink much.

That said, I’ve never had a drinking buddy let alone a group of drinking buddies. Contacting some guys to meet at a bar is something I’ve never done. Going to a bar to watch a game is just not on my radar. I’ve never hung out at a VFW or the like. No bartender has ever asked me if I want my usual.

I did go to “office get togethers” at bars. I’d order a mixed drink, and if others were having multiple drinks, I made it a Sprite or ginger ale. Me not drinking more than one was often noted but, I think, in a positive way, as me being someone being under control.

Those of us who don’t drink much notice there are lots of opportunities to drink: bars, restaurants, music venues, sports venues, breweries, wineries, distilleries and the like. Most every town has at least one bar. Book clubs, softball leagues, reunions, family gatherings and so much more all include a drinking component. Drinking is a big part of our economy and actually also our social fabric.

We all make choices in our lives. Not drinking much is a choice I made long ago. Sometimes I think if I would have drank more, my life would have been a bit more fun. Drinking lowers some inhibitions and sometimes a little less inhibition is a good thing.

I wish there was an easier, maybe more convenient way to spend time with buddies just chatting about whatever, which did not include drinking. Did I mention I don’t like coffee either. Although, lately I’ve been going out to breakfast with a buddy here and there. So there is hope for social contact without drinking.

Over the years, I occasionally get tempted to go to a bar, order a whiskey and seven while I tell tales of all of the brave and brilliant things I’ve done. Everyone would laugh at the clever way I told stories and jokes. It might be fun.

Ever notice the tales told by sober people somehow are a bit less funny, brave or brilliant. That describes me pretty well. A bit less funny, brave or brilliant.

The closer you look the more you see.