I’m not a teetotaler. Just a depressive with a keen understanding of how my depression and anxiety are exacerbated when alcohol is added to the chemical mix of my body. I trust my audience enough to not reiterate all the ways that alcohol acts as a depressant on the human body. For anyone wanting to relive the online courses about alcohol that most college freshman now take, check out the embedded video.

I come naturally depressed, and any amount or type of alcohol just adds to the stinking pile within my mind. This is why I am exceedingly careful about when and how much I drink. I’ll have a beer, maybe two, every quarter. Never hard liquor. Tequila shall not pass my lips again for reasons that will go unstated, but that I feel everyone will understand regardless. I enjoy a cocktail and recently had a spiked Arnold Palmer while on a delightful date. Being a depressive means following certain rules if I want to stay ahead of the dangers lurking in my mind.

I didn’t always follow these rules, and sometimes I stretch them, but they’ve served me well for the better part of the last ten years:

1. Only drink with people I feel safe around.

2. Drink water along with my glass of beer. A 2-to-1 water-to-beer ratio hydrates me while allowing me to partake.

3. Order an O’Doul’s! This still tickles me because it’s all my grandpa ever drank, and I share many of his other mannerisms.

4. No more than two drinks on any given night. I am a happy lightweight.

5. Ensure that I have no need whatsoever to get up early the next day.

Since I had two mixed-drinks about two weeks ago, I’m probably not drinking any type of alcoholic beverage until at least August. Drinking quarterly isn’t a hard rule. I’ve just never been big into drinking and I don’t like how my body or my brain feels in the days after imbibing. Always treating my depression as an opponent that I strategize against each day; drinking is like spotting my depression fifteen points in a game of twenty-one. I’ll risk that when I’m feeling especially good, but it’s not a sustainable strategy.

The immediate effects are great — it’s the one to three days after too much alcohol that pain me greatly. I’m lethargic and increasingly anxious. Laying in bed cycling between fitful sleep and waking into full-body paralysis from panic attacks that started while I was unconscious. You’d think it’d take one of those kinds of mornings before I learned to ration my alcohol intake, but no. I was a college freshman with undiagnosed depression and I drank more than my body could handle. I never made the connection between the beer and not being able to get up for afternoon classes. Then I was diagnosed and hospitalized. I raged against my condition and continued to drink for many years before accepting the facts:

• I am a depressive.

• Alcohol depresses the brain and body (also tends to screw with antidepressants).

• Likely future pain is mitigated by rigorously moderating my alcohol intake.

One other benefit to spacing out my drinking is that it makes it much easier to identify why I may be depressed. Alcohol muddied my data tracking. Was I depressed or just hungover? Was I more nervous than usual or was I just experiencing my natural side-effects after drinking? I couldn’t narrow down what precipitated any depressive or anxious spiral when I drank more than once a quarter.

What’s important here is that I found what works for me. There are depressives out there who can drink every week and manage their mental illness. I am not one of them. What I did was stay curious about my depression, learned its ticks and tells, and figured out when I gave it too many advantages.

I play the long-game against my depression; my hope is to play until I’m wrinkled and grey.