The first 14 days.

Last Saturday, I met up with my sponsor--K--at the 10:30am meeting (that turned out to be all women), cleaned up the place after the meeting, then we both went to some new Mexican food restaurant for lunch.

We walked into the place. A strange yet eye-catching tree arrangement greeted us, and then a host popped out from behind it and showed us to a table at a booth. As the host led us along, I trailed behind staring at the bar that was right beside us. It was gussied up and the liquor bottles glittered at me as I walked past. I had been sober for 8 days now.

We sat down at the table across from each other and I pulled out my Big Book and journal--specifically for AA--and laid them on the table. Our waiter came up and broke out with his pad and pen--

So, what would you ladies like to drink? Could I get you a couple of margaritas, perhaps?

I glanced at K. The corner of her mouth twitched. I looked back over at the waiter.

I'll have a Dr. Pepper, I said.

And I'll have a Coke, K added.

The waiter jotted down our requests and ambled away to get our drinks. I looked longingly over at the glistening array of liquor bottles lined up behind the bar. Christ. A margarita would be good. A rum and coke would be even better. The back of my tongue and the inner side of my throat began to throb. I could taste it.

I told K this, and she replied that it gets easier with time. Occasionally she'd see a billboard of a new kind of vodka or some such thing, and she'd think--

(Damn...that sounds good...)

--but would catch herself and realize what she was thinking, and immediately change the direction of where that thought was heading.

It also reminded me about when I quit smoking: it was damn hard at first--every time I could smell cigarette smoke--but after a while, as more time pass that I didn't smoke, I began to dislike the smell of cigarette smoke--to the point that I eventually loathed it. I mentioned to K that maybe I'd eventually feel the same way about The Drink as time went on, and she agreed.

Several days later, I went to class as usual. Did my learning. Afterward, I went to the language lab to do my German homework. The little seed of desire somehow got planted in my mind during my last class. By the time I sat down to work on German lab stuff, the seed had sprouted. I had walked by a street behind the campus that was filled with bars. I stood on the curb and wondered--

(Will I never walk into a bar ever again?)

--and the idea of it scared me. Despite my issues, I had had fun going to bars to drink and socialize. Drinking seemed to allow me to smile and laugh and talk. Could I do that without The Drink? But of course, but it wouldn't be easy to manufacture that feeling without alcohol or some kind of drug.

I texted K and with a bit of help from her--my desire to drink that day ebbed away.