The Morning After

The Morning After

Everyone talks about the drunk.

No one talks about the person who has to wake up next to the aftermath. Or the people fr that matter.

I've never been afraid of alcohol.

Honestly, my relationship with it has been pretty consistent for my entire adult life. I started around the same age as the rest of ya’s, 16 at the family BBQ. Early 2000s BBQ, not whatever the hell these things are nowdays. That night was just a lil sumthin sumthin, a lil wine cooler if you will.

Shit tasted like juice so I knocked that shit on back and… puffed my first hit of the lords lettuce and…bing bong slept like a baby.

From eighteen to about my 20s I would consider myself a pretty heavy drinker. Something about underage drinking in the 2010s was… you simply would have to be there.

The bottom line, give me enough drinks and you'll probably get an off-key concert nobody asked for, maybe a quick peek of my cooter as I hop my ass in bed (insert shrug, sorry magaly lol), an embarrassing amount of confidence, a quick trip to the bathroom to throw up, and then I'm zonked before my head hits the pillow, I’m talking bout gone with the wind…

It's predictable.

It's almost boring, almost.

Unfortunately, that isn't everyone's story.

For some people, alcohol introduces someone you've never met before, or maybe...someone they work really hard to keep hidden.

The funny guy becomes cruel.

The calm person becomes explosive.

The affectionate partner becomes suspicious, jealous, accusatory, or emotionally reckless.

And when that version of them shows up, it doesn't just ruin a night.

It leaves casualties.

What fascinates me isn't even the drinking anymore. It's the morning after.

The silence.

The confusion.

The piecing together of conversations and events everyone wishes hadn't happened.

The apologies... My goodness... THE APOLOGIES... 

Or worse...the pretending nothing happened at all.

That's the part nobody prepares you for.

The drunk version may only exist for a few hours, but everyone else is left cleaning up the emotional debris long after the alcohol leaves their bloodstream.

I've found myself in an oddly familiar place recently.

Two different people who share the same struggle.

Different personalities, different lives, different histories.

The same fucking relationship with alcohol, go figure.

And watching it unfold twice has forced me to ask questions I never expected to ask...

Again...

Why do some people become louder while others become dangerous?

Why do some people forget the evening while everyone around them remembers every painful detail?

Why does one person wake up with a headache and a need for something greasy, while someone else wakes up wondering if the relationship survived the night?

I don't have a single, solitary, goddamn answer.

I at least have learned this though;

At some point, "that's just how I get when I drink" stops being an explanation and starts becoming a warning. If you know alcohol consistently turns you into someone who hurts the people you love, the responsible choice isn't another apology. It's asking why you keep giving that version of yourself permission to show up.

And that stupid ass saying that "alcohol numbs the pain..." For who?

Deadass, all it does is postpone it. The pain is still there the next morning, except now it's joined by regret, embarrassment, damaged relationships, PROPERTY... and conversations nobody wanted to have. If alcohol truly numbed pain, people wouldn't wake up carrying even more of it.

But what's more, alcohol has the potential to magnify whatever already exists.

If trust is shaky, it becomes suspicion.

If resentment is buried, it finds a microphone.

If insecurity is quietly sitting in the corner, alcohol hands it the fucking steering wheel. 

It's like removing the training wheels to a bike you have no clue how to ride.

But that doesn't mean alcohol is solely to blame.

It means accountability doesn't disappear just because someone was intoxicated.

An apology after the fact may be genuine, but so is the fear someone else experienced while it was happening, and that is the part nobody talks about. The fear.

Both things can exist at the same time.

The hardest lesson I've had to learn is that loving someone doesn't automatically mean accepting every version of them.

Especially the one that leaves you questioning your own peace.

Which brings me to yet another realization that has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol...and everything to do with honesty.

Because THAT is the core of Polyamory, honesty.  You cannot successfully date two people if you're only emotionally invested in one. And you require the ability to be honest not just with someone else, but with yourself. Otherwise it's not going to work. 

Eventually, someone notices.

The attention shifts.

The effort changes.

The excuses become more frequent.

One relationship starts surviving on leftovers while the other receives the best parts of you.

Polyamory isn't about collecting partners.

It's about multiplying honesty, communication, and intention.

If your heart has already chosen one person, pretending you're equally invested in another isn't kindness.

It's avoidance... it’s cruel.

And avoidance has a funny way of looking a lot like hope to the person still waiting.

Whether it's alcohol or relationships, the damage usually isn't done in one catastrophic moment.

One dismissed feeling...

One "it wasn't that bad"...

One promise to do things differently...

Until someone finally realizes they've been carrying the weight of someone else's choices for far too long.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, the morning after eventually arrives for all of us, God willing obviously.

Unfortunately, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been down this road before, on the receiving end of someone else’s bullshit.

And, the real question isn't whether the night was chaotic.

It's whether anything actually changes once the sun comes up.