This is not a scenario where I'm having dinner with my husband or with friends, and we order a bottle of wine. This is different from having a drink before dinner because everyone else is doing the same -- while consuming cheese and crackers. That is drinking casually.
My drinking deliberately was drinking for a purpose. The purpose was to unwind. What was wound up -- my mind, my emotions, my body in knots? How did it get that way? Sure, drinking helped me unwind, but it didn't do a thing about the reasons I was wound up in the first place.
I remember coming home late from work, on a cold winter night. Almost as soon as I got in the door and took my coat off, my Blackberry rang. I had to answer it. The slate in our roof interfered with reception, so I went out on the front stoop. After I had been out there for a minute or two my husband came out, draped my coat over my shoulders, and handed me a scotch-on-the-rocks. I NEEDED that drink, and I drank it deliberately.
Thinking back, that was a precursor to my later days of drinking deliberately on a daily basis. Drinking to get rid of the hangover. Drinking to feel more sociable BEFORE the party. Drinking to ease the physical pain. Drinking to ease the mental and emotional pain of drinking too much.
