Recently, I jotted down a random thought that came to mind while I was sitting in my cubicle, bemoaning another day at a job I have no passion for. I wrote the following:

“I want to be an active participant in my own life”

At first, that statement seemed to make no sense to me, but as I really thought about it, it seemed to make all the sense in the world. For too long, I’ve been going with the flow, letting life, in a sense, pass me by. There are times when I’m so unhappy, but yet I do nothing about it. I guess it’s easier to complain rather than taking that leap- that leap which could lead to a giant failure or a wonderful success. And the strangest part about it? That I’m not sure what I’m more scared of- failure or success.

Fear has always been the driving factor in my life. Whether it be the fear of being alone, of being the outcast, of making soemone else unhappy with my decisions or actions- fear has usually been in the drivers seat when my mind went about making decisions or choices when it came to my life. The problem is that I can do it no longer. I can’t let fear keep me from living the life I want to lead. The life where I find my passion and break free from a career where I’m not using my brain, my personality or my skills. The life where I can sit alone in silence without having to listen to the nagging voices of doubt when I go about making a decision. The kind of life I’ll look back on without regret.

It’s time to stop going through the motions for the sake of not stirring up my fears. It’s time to live a little (no, a LOT!), to be an active participant in my own life.

Granted, I’ve said this many times before and have always thought I’d follow through with it, but this time, I mean it. I’m done with drinking.

It wasn’t a killer hangover or a stupid drunken episode which caused me to re-evaluate my life and the role alcohol plays in it. It was simply a realization which came to me last Saturday morning after a night out drinking with a friend. As we talked about the past and the dumb things we’ve done in our lifetimes, it dawned on me, that, for a majority of those “I’m such an idiot” or “I’ve made a huge mistake” kind of times, there’s seemed to run a common thread- that these episodes of stupidity and recklessness usually involved alcohol.*

Not to say that I’m a drunk. I don’t sit around drinking by myself or hiding alcohol like Meg Ryan did in “When A Man Loves a Woman”. It’s that when I drink, I don’t drink for pleasure, I drink to get drunk. Hammered. Plastered. And although I don’t consider myself an alcoholic, I’m sure someone in AA would beg to differ.

Drinking for me came along later in life. I didn’t touch the stuff in high school (except for a couple times when peer pressure felt like an anvil around my neck), and for the most part, didn’t really drink regularly until I went to college. With alcohol, I went from being this shy, plain girl to the life of the party. Everyone loved me, or so I thought. I felt popular, something I’d never really felt before, and with my exceedingly low self-esteem, recognition from my peers was something that I craved. I was the fun one, the one who did stupid things that we could all laugh about the next morning, the one who would use alcohol to pass out so I wouldn’t have bad dreams at night.

From there, it evolved into almost a hobby. For me and my friends, college revolved around bar nights and house parties. We’d make sure not to schedule classes on Friday mornings because we knew we’d be too hung over the next morning to bother getting out of bed before 11. We’d go for Tuesday night $1 pitchers and Sunday night Bellringers. We’d pre-party at each other’s apartments before even going out, as to save money and get a good buzz before we got to the bar. Granted, a fair share of people who went to college did that, but for me, it continued on after college and continued throughout my twenties.

I can’t begin to tell you how many bad situations I put myself in that I was lucky enough to get out of, but let’s just say the list is long. So why would anyone in their right mind want to continue such a terrible habit? Because I’ve never known how to stop and I’m not sure how to have fun without alcohol in a social setting. We live in a society that’s centered around alcohol. Happy hour, cocktail hour, wine tastings, bar crawls. To have a cosmo or glass of wine is to be cool. What else would you do in a room full of strangers? It’s that glass in your hand or that bottle in front of you at the table that binds you together. You’re no longer strangers, you’re one of the gang. And to not drink, well, that would make you an outsider.

It’s funny that it all comes back full circle for me- that need for acceptance and to be part of the group, not the outsider, the “dork”. You’d think I were 13, not 31, still trying to fit in, still trying to belong.

* I don’t blame alcohol for all my actions, but I know for me, it causes adverse effects most of the time. It’s just something I’ve come to realize I can’t handle and alcohol and I don’t “do well” together.