Tidings of Comfort and Joy

When I was a practicing alcoholic, the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas was always ripe with reasons for extra drinking. There was a sense of gaiety, real or pretended, that seemed to need some festive drinking to make it complete. There are more cocktail parties, office parties, and other seasonal gatherings that give rise to toasts, days off from work, and other camouflage for us problem drinkers. The other people in my life never seemed as surprised that I had gotten drunk on these special occasions as they did on a Tuesday in May. Naturally, I used every opportunity to its fullest, including episodes of passing out at parties, sleeping in religious ceremonies, and running up even larger than usual bar tabs.