Yes, I Started Drinking Again — And I Don’t Think You Should Worry

A little more than four years ago, I woke up with one of the most excruciating hangovers of my life: mouth socked in, body wrung of water, head throbbing sickly. It was a bright, would-be beautiful north Florida morning. It was New Year’s Day. It was the day I quit drinking.

Still enshrouded in my covers, crumpled after a toss-and-turn night, I reached grimacingly toward my cell phone — toward the answer to the familiar, fearful question that often ran through my head on mornings like this: what did I do last night? After ensuring I’d posted nothing incriminating to social media, I noticed a set of text messages from my bank. A charge of $137.94 had been made to my credit card at 12:42 in the morning. Did I recognize the transaction? Was it legitimate?

I squinted at the screen to make out the vendor’s name through its truncated, all-caps code.

Match.com.

In my drunken fog, I’d signed up for six months’ worth of premium access to the most dated dating site available.

It didn’t occur to me until much later that I should have taken the out, should have let the universe give me the gift of that annulment. Instead, I replied YES to the text message, accepting the charge — my punishment.