Chapter Nineteen - The Liquid Permission Slip

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Liquid Permission Slip

ALCOHOL

IT’S EVERYWHERE.
Weddings. Funerals. Breakups. Promotions. Tuesdays.

Raise a glass, take the edge off, numb the ache, and toast the night.

Alcohol doesn’t come in quietly or reverently.
It celebrates itself.
It’s the only drug you have to explain not doing.

And for something so accepted, it’s amazing how much we try not to look directly at it.

Because deep down?

We know what it is.

Alcohol is a depressant.

Not “depressing,” but neurologically, it slows your system.
Your thoughts, your reflexes, your filter, and your inhibitions.

That’s what people love.
And that’s what gets people into trouble.

It’s not the drink.
It’s the permission.

The excuse to feel.
Or to not feel.
To speak. Or to stay silent.
To loosen the grip on reality, just for a while.

And in that gap?

A lot can happen.

Alcohol takes the edges off.

The stress.
The fear.
The voice in your head that won’t stop running its mouth.

It makes people louder.
Funnier.
More honest, or less depending on the pour.

It’s a liquid disguise.
A softening agent.
A slow-motion car crash in a crystal glass.

And the thing is?

It works.
Until it doesn’t.

People use it because they don’t know how else to unwind.
Because they’re lonely.
Because they’re celebrating.
Because they’re hurting.

Because it's normal.
Because it’s social.
Because it’s legal.
Because no one questions it.

Until they do.
And by then, it’s already woven in.

The habit. The ritual. The “I need a drink” shrug after a hard day.

Not indulgence.
Not rebellion.

Just routine.

The risks aren’t just the liver damage or the hangover.

It’s the fog.

The way it blurs your sense of self over time.
The way it silences parts of you that needed to be heard.
The way it makes you forget.
Not just memories, but why you started drinking in the first place.

Dependency creeps.
Not like a crash, but like a shadow getting longer as the sun sets.

And you don’t always see it until it’s wrapped around your ankles.

Alcohol teaches avoidance.
Not because it wants to, but because that’s what we use it for.

It shows us how rarely we sit with what we feel.
How much pressure we carry.
How little we know about processing pain without performance.

It says, “I can make you forget.”

And some nights, that feels like a gift.

But eventually?

You remember.

And when you do, you realize forgetting was never the cure.

It was just a delay.