Saying Goodbye to Cocktails

I visited my doctor recently and he told me the results of tests that I had done about a year ago. Inexplicably, I had not gotten the message to come in for a follow-up, so this year-old news was news to me. He said that my liver was stressed out and that alcohol was to blame. Wow. What I took that to mean is that my cocktail swilling, beer guzzling, red wine loving days are behind me.
It's not some grim prognosis that will paralyze me with fear, or radically change how I live my life. It's just time, I realized, to make booze a small, insignificant part of my life, instead of a regular practice of daily life, like tying my shoes or brushing my teeth. What once was a habit will now be a treat.

I went to a small party last night, and sipped teeny, weeny sips of red wine, making two small glasses last the whole party. This was my booze for the week, I thought, tomorrow night there will be Yerba Mate tea, or seltzer, or water. There are a lot of people in the world who get along just fine without any alcohol. Now I'm determined to be one of them.