Hopped Up on the Goon Juice

I think often about ingesting substances which do not have my best interests at their non-existent hearts. I'm open to both alcohol and drugs, except maybe those which involve needles. For reasons I don't understand, I find movie scenes in which characters shoot up (see Trainspotting, Ray) as horrific as scenes of heartless violence. On second thought, when I had gestational diabetes, after a few rounds of frustrated tears, it got pretty easy to stick myself. But I think heroin would require more precision than the insulin jab. So let's pass on the needles. Everything else, though, is fair game.

On those selected occasions when the husband and I go out sans-son, I think about really getting my drink on, mixing it up, the way I did throughout my 20s, drinking absurd things like Colorado Bulldogs and Pearl Harbors in between beer and wine and shots of thing not meant to be drunk, things that will get me good and liquored up - and good and pukey the next day. Things that let me forget for a few hours. Things that make my head hurt so badly I can't construct the thoughts that haunt.

I think about drugs, too, although I've never done anything. In the immediate aftermath of my first son's stillbirth, I thought about drugs that would finish me off, although I ruled them out since they would leave a mess for someone else to clean up. I've taken my share of anti-depressants and (in my last pregnancy) anti-anxiety meds, and I regret none of that monkey business, but I'd like to really do it up right. I had an intensely stressful day, and I kept thinking about the Xanax my husband's doctor prescribed for him after (you know, after) in the glove compartment of my car, a mere hundred yards away from where I sat.

I didn't take the Xanax for the same reason I didn't take advantage of being in the Doobie Capital of the World for 22 hours a couple of weeks ago. I fight so hard for every droplet of breastmilk I produce that I will only give up breastfeeding while kicking and screaming, and to pump-and-dump that liquid gold (actually, more like liquid green in my case) makes my heart sink to my toes. Also of concern: I've been restricting myself to the occasional half-a-beer of late (and one very, very good martini!) because I'm just too damn tired to withstand anything that would drag me any lower.

And then there's my son. I'm so blown away by him, by his zest for, well, everything, and I want to be there for all of it, to be totally present with him. All those chemical escapes would cast a nice glow over him, but they would keep me from being completely with him. I already know what it's like to be separated from the son I want more than anything in the world, and I wouldn't recommend it.

But still, I do think about it. Someday, I won't be breastfeeding, and while it's probably a little late for me to pick up a crack habit, I will live to get pissing drunk again. Man, am I thirsty.