Sacrifice

Today marks one month during which I have not had any caffeine or alcohol.

Objectively speaking, this is not a particularly heroic feat.  There are many, many people who choose voluntarily and with a minimum of fuss not to partake of products containing either substance, for reasons ranging from alcoholism to asceticism to simple health consciousness.   There are people like my father who suffer grave illness, and are carted off to the hospital for months, during which time such things are flatly unavailable to them (although they gave my father a glass of red wine after his heart surgery.)  There are people suffering from deprivation of things far more important, like food, people who don’t have the option to partake of them in the first place.

I chose to make the attempt for three reasons.  The first was out of physical health consciousness:  I have various medical issues, and moderation and/or elimination of caffeine and alcohol is supposed to be beneficial for addressing these issues.  I have done similar stretches in the past, eliminating one or the other for much longer periods than a month, and both for shorter times.  It never makes me feel better (nor has it this time), and I always go back using both of them eventually.  But it isn’t harmful to get a sense of where the zero level lies:  what it’s like not to be running around without some sort of drug continuously in your system.

The second reason I chose to try was out of mental health consciousness:  an awareness that I was in a cycle, and that the cycle was going someplace that wasn’t particularly good.  One cup of coffee in the morning became a cup of coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at night, which became several cups of coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at night, which became several cups of coffee in the morning and several glasses of wine at night, then a bottle of wine at night, and pretty soon I’m ripping the coffeemaker at work out of its Formica framing and pouring the smoking stream straight down my throat, chewing on the grounds, guzzling Pine-sol and Drano out of the bottles under my sink and lying on the floor in a pool of my own drool and vomit in-between, surrounded by the empties.  This, too, has happened before (well–  the first part), and the sad thing is that knowing that it’s a bad place to be doesn’t make me miss the ritual of it any less.  I look forward to that damn cup of coffee in the morning and that damn glass of wine at night.  Some days it’s the only thing I look forward to.   Substituting herb tea and near-beer shouldn’t make that much of a difference to the routine, but it does.  Maybe that’s physiological, or maybe it’s psychological, but either way–  do I really need to deprive myself of that small comfort?  Not to mention willingly kick another strut out of the bridge between myself and the rest of humanity–  force myself not to order a cup of coffee with the rest of my co-workers, or share a beer with my friends?

And the third reason I wanted to try was–  I hesitate to say it–  because this one month mark also happens to be the night of the full moon.  And 4 weeks ago, with everything in the shitter and the world still falling apart and Magic itself seemingly dying around me, it slowly occurred to me that only a rube sits around and watches Magic die;  a mage does something about it.  I heard a whispering then, and the whispering said that after a month of not having any caffeine or alcohol (or quite a few other things), and with the lunar energy topping me off, I might have the energy to cast a spell.  A mighty spell, one that would heal the world.  My world.

But I never had the time to research it, or plan it.  Or figure out just what that would mean.  Because, you see, my mother broke her arm at the same time that my Dad went back to the hospital, and she needs help.  And my sister the Empress can’t be there nights to take care of her anymore, because she has to go back to school and teach, and my sister Iris and my brother Mayor are already at the hospital 24-7 taking care of my Dad.  So it’s up to me.  My mother doesn’t need me to be a mage.  She doesn’t need me to cast a spell.  She needs me to help make her breakfast, and take care of the dog, and talk to her, and help get her settled at night when we go to sleep.

I can do that.  I am doing that.

But in any event, I made it.  And tonight I will probably see the moon, and perhaps you will see the moon, too, and who knows what you will do then?

Maybe I’ll have a glass of wine.