When I was drinking, I would think about giving up wine for Lent every year. I’d have this moral argument in my head and always come up with something else – like nail biting or chocolate or fried food (I use Lent as a kick-starter for diets). One year I was discussing it with Lauren and I said, “I’ve decided to give up red wine this year, what about you?”
Lauren gave me one of those ironic looks daughters give mothers and said, “I’m giving up junk food. Red wine huh? Do you even drink red wine? Why just red wine, why don’t you give up wine altogether?”
I was in my defensive drinking phase and I said, “Junk food? Why don’t you give up all food?”
She did that thing where the space between her upper lip and nose got narrower and shook her head. She walked away with my defensiveness hanging in the air like a garlic burp. I said to her back, “I drink red wine sometimes…”
That’s the crux of the matter isn’t it? Finding a way to give up drinking, altogether. As the above exchange illustrates, even with the best of intentions, I used to give myself some wiggle room…
It was a full two years of several 30 day respites, before I realized I was never going to be able to be a moderate drinker. I used to think, “What’s the point?” when I read some ground breaking idea where you practiced “restraint” and didn’t “overdrink”, limiting your alcoholic drink intake to a few (excruciatingly charted) glasses a week. Even now when I think about drinking, I don’t think about sitting with friends and sipping a good glass of red wine; I think of lying on a couch alone with a jumbo bottle of plonk.
This Lenten season I am giving up my newest addiction – sugar. I don’t like rules, but I will follow them if I really think God wants me to, and I am desperate to stop binging on candy…
But I am NOT giving up coffee…
Give me a break. I’ve been through a lot.