doctor's orders

About a month ago, at a just-in-the-nick-of-time appointment to get my prescriptions refilled, I finally remembered to ask my doc about that weird mole on my upper thigh (nothing to worry about).  As he confirmed my pharmacy for the scrip refills, I remembered the other thing I needed to ask him, and cleared my throat.

"So I've been having issues with anxiety," I said. "I've been medicated for it periodically. It doesn't require daily medication like depression, but every once in awhile it gets bad, and it's been bad lately."  He nodded, following me; I'd already outlined for him what my last few months have entailed.  "Do you think I need to be medicated for it for awhile?"

His shrewd, brisk eyes took me in for a moment.  "Do you want to be medicated for it?"

"Well, I don't want to feel like this anymore," I said.

He assessed me again with that sharp face that I never know quite how to read.

"You drink?" he asked.

I just stared at him for a moment while my entire body clamped down on the impulse to howl with laughter and yell DO I?  I had finally cut back on my alcohol intake, which, though never more than a couple of glasses at a time, had been worrying me with its frequency; after all, I had reasoned, I can only moan "the election" for so long as a preamble to a glass of wine. This being the only life I get, I had reasoned further, I would like to enjoy a long length of it without cirrhosis of the liver.  I watched Dr. S's face, couldn't hear any reprimand in his tone, and, keeping my face neutral, answered,

"Well, I've cut back a lot. But yeah, I like to drink."

"What do you usually do, when you drink?"

"Well--I come home and pour myself a glass of something after work."

"Glass of what?"

"Oh, just about anything; I like it all.  Usually it's wine though."

"Red or white?"

"Usually red. Sometimes white in the summer, like now, when it's hot out."

"Relax you?"

"Oh yes," I said fervently.

He smiled, a quick twinkle.  "Can you keep it to one?"

"Sure, that's not a problem," I said.

He shrugged.  "So do that."

"Uh -- really?"  I resisted the impulse to clean out my ears on an assumed mis-hearing.

"Sure."

"Like -- every day?"  This was not the medical advice I had been expecting.

"If you keep it to one it's fine."

"I was--" I cast about for a minute, completely unsure of my footing in these uncharted and unprecedented medical waters.  "I, uh, was cutting back because I was worried about my liver."

He shrugged again and started organizing the papers on his clipboard.  "Frankly anything I could prescribe you for anxiety would be harder on your liver than alcohol. Alcohol is more natural" [I successfully refrained from rolling my eyes] "and your body is used to it. If one glass of wine a day makes you feel calmer, just stick with what works."

"Oh -- well -- okay. A glass of wine a day.  I think I can do that."  (I mean, I'm gonna HATE it, but if it's for my health, I guess I can drink.)

I practically skipped out to the parking lot.  (Meg, upon hearing the story that weekend, wanted to watch me slap a prescription for alcohol onto a bar counter.) I had never thought of taking anti-anxieties as pleasurable.  But my doctor-recommended glass of dry red medicine that night carried me off into a land where I did nothing but smile.