So you think you've got it under control?

Why drink at all, then, if you're so sure? 

When your child celebrates his 11th birthday.  And the cops look at you under darkened eyes.  And your mom asks you whether everything is okay.  And your hands shake if you don't drink before 3pm on saturday.  And your wife stares at you, tear driven mascara covering her words.  Molten bubbles that barely make it to the surface, they tell you something you're hiding from: that you're responsible for her pain. And you cringe under her stare, and lack the courage to elongate your gaze to match hers, and she stutters under the lightness of the man that you've developed into.

And you tell yourself that the only reality that matters is your reality, what you tell yourself, and you find it comforting, and distancing, and you don't have to listen to them all if you can just cradle against it and hold it, and everything can be, at least for that moment, how you want it.  And you know who your friends are.  And the enemies too.  And you're smarter than them.  And you have the success, and the scars, to show your spirit to anyone tough enough to look.  Never mind that your old man kicked out early, or that your child spends his nights in the glow of electronics, his puberty experienced in pixels.  It is part of the times, you'll say, and you'll be right, because you usually are right, after all.  And your wife will calm down and she'll stay with you.  And you only hit her that once, one mishap, one mistake that is not part of your character, your energy, because you are fundamentally good no matter how many fundamentally bad people you can think of.  Just one drink.  That's all.  Just one drink and you can think about everything else tomorrow.