I have been writing in a journal on an almost-daily basis since I was 17 years old. This is a record of me going through each entry from the beginning, and commenting on the me from fifteen years ago.

When you tell people that you don’t drink, one of two things happen: They will say “That’s cool” and then alienate you. Or they will say, “Why not?”.

When a person asks you why you don’t drink, you can respond in two ways: You can say that there’s a very good reason but you’re not going to tell them, at which point that person will begin to alienate you. Or, you can tell them it’s because your father used to drink and he hit your mother. That you used to sleep with your crying sister as you heard your mother’s head being pounded into a washing machine between your fathers incessant yelling. Then tell them you don’t want to be anything like him.

When someone hardly knows you, then knows too much, they tend to alienate you. The fact that you’re crying only gives them a better reason.

It’s all very true and I’ve seen it all before.

I was having trouble enough with my friends drinking in high school, and ways for me to avoid the question of why I didn’t drink. College brought this problem of mine to an entirely different level. Everyone was drinking, and most social activities centered around drinking. My solution (and not a very good one, I might add) was to not go to any parties. I would sit in my room, alone, usually reading. The solution I later discovered was to go to the parties and not drink. When people are drunk, they have a hard time telling who’s sober – especially if you’re drinking anything out of a red, plastic cup. The point is, I acted like everyone was alienating me for not drinking. Not true, they were alienating me because I was alienating myself by being anti-social.