There is always an excuse to drink.

That is the part nobody tells you honestly enough.

People talk about the obvious ones.
The birthdays.
The weddings.
The Christmas tables.
The sunny days when everyone is sitting outside with glasses in their hands, laughing as though the world has never once broken them.

But the truth is, drinking does not need an occasion.

It only needs a crack.

A bad day.
A good day.
A hard conversation.
A silence.
A memory that comes too close.
A feeling that will not sit quietly.
A thought that scratches at the inside of your head until you would do almost anything to make it stop.

There is always an excuse.

I drank because I was sad.
I drank because I was angry.
I drank because I was lonely.
I drank because I was tired.
I drank because I was overwhelmed.
I drank because I had survived something and survival felt heavier than the thing itself.

I drank because the house was too loud.
I drank because my mind was too loud.
I drank because I needed to feel nothing.
I drank because I needed to feel something.
I drank because the day had been too much and I had been too little inside it.

Sometimes the excuse looked reasonable.

I deserved it.
I needed it.
I had earned it.
I had held everyone together all day and nobody had seen how much of me had come undone in the process.

Sometimes the excuse sounded almost gentle.

Just one.
Just tonight.
Just to take the edge off.
Just to get through.
Just to breathe.
Just to make the world softer for a little while.

But alcohol never only took the edge off.

It took the middle too.

It took the parts of me that were still trying.
The parts that wanted better.
The parts that knew, even through all the noise, that I was worth more than another night of losing myself.

And still, there was always an excuse.

A message unanswered.
A look from someone.
A bill on the side.
A memory in the kitchen.
A song in the car.
A name I wish did not still have weight.
A version of me I could not forgive.
A version of life I could not reach.

I could turn anything into a reason.

Pain became a reason.
Shame became a reason.
Fear became a reason.
Even hope, sometimes, became a reason, because hope is terrifying when you have known what it feels like to have it taken from you.

And that is the brutal truth.

I did not always drink because something happened.

Sometimes I drank because nothing happened.

Because nothing changed.
Because nobody came.
Because the help was delayed.
Because the waiting went on.
Because I was still here, still carrying it, still expected to function with a heart that felt like it had been dragged across gravel.

People think excuses are lies.

But sometimes excuses are truths with the wrong ending.

It is true that I have been hurt.
It is true that I have been tired.
It is true that I have carried too much.
It is true that some days feel impossible before they even begin.

But it is also true that alcohol does not rescue me.

It waits for me at my weakest and calls itself relief.

It holds out its hand and pretends it is comfort.
It tells me I can disappear for a while.
It tells me I can step out of my own skin.
It tells me I can put the weight down.

But the weight is always there in the morning.

Only then it has grown teeth.

Then comes the guilt.
The shame.
The fog.
The pieces of myself I have to gather up again.
The quiet apology I make to my own body.
The question I already know the answer to.

Why did I do that?

And the answer is never simple.

Because I was hurting.
Because I was human.
Because I was tired of being strong.
Because I wanted one door out of myself and alcohol has always known how to disguise itself as an exit.

But today I am trying to be honest.

Not poetic honest.
Not softened honest.
Not the kind of honest that makes it easier for other people to swallow.

Truthfully honest.

The kind that says I can find an excuse anywhere if I am looking for one.

The kind that says sometimes I do not need the world to bring me down.

Sometimes I do it myself.

And today, my car broke down in a pub car park, and that was the only excuse I needed.