At some point in my life, I will probably stop drinking. Or put another way, at some point in my life, I will probably have to stop drinking. It’s quite reasonable to foresee that at some time in the future, something will either force or heavily encourage me to relieve alcohol of its many duties and continue on with an unaltered consciousness. There is a multitude of reasons why this life change would occur and if there were some rogue bookmaker who gave odds on such things, I would guess that the two obvious favored reasons for my future abstinence would be either alcoholism or overwhelming time constraints due to a family. I suppose serious illness could potentially make a decent value bet, as well. However, if I could wager on what would ultimately persuade me to dry out altogether, I would put my money on Mondays…wretched, depressing Mondays.
I am not sure when, but at some point in my life Monday became the new Sunday. It’s easy to assume this happened once college ended and the working world began, although I think there is a little more to it than that. College is the time when most people really come into their own as drinkers. Even if you drank a lot in high school, it doesn’t compare to work you put in throughout college. The discipline and restraint you may have had to exercise in high school due to parents and curfews is no longer necessary. Your new-found freedom justifies almost anything and allows you to live buck wild, thus bingeing Wednesday through Saturday becomes not only acceptable, but almost routine. The combination of virtually zero responsibilities and a young, healthy immune system enables you to drink five days a week quite efficiently. Although we could probably have gone weeks straight if necessary, we typically didn’t because societal forces told us that Sunday was the end and it was time to regroup. Fortunately, hangovers at that age weren’t too blinding, so a day consisting of a naps, Advil, and a few pulls from a dugout typically cured what ailed you and provided more than enough recuperation necessary to tackle the tough week of sleeping in and attending class that lay ahead. But regardless, it was during these years that Sunday developed the reputation as the day you would most certainly be hung-over.
For better or for worse, these same habits accompanied us into the working world. We slaved away at new jobs, but on the weekends, we were determined to prove that we were still college at heart. We pushed our sleep patterns back six hours and drank like Friday was the last day of finals. Mentally, the transition from college life to the real world was gradual, but physically, the immediate changes were hard to ignore. Forty-hour work weeks were much more taxing than the 12-hour class schedule we were used to and a Sunday on the couch wasn’t repairing the weekend’s damages as well as we were accustomed. This was largely because around this time, the ratio of days-partying to days-needed-for-recovery began to shift. Prior to now, we could fully recover in less time than we had actually partied. For instance, going out hard for two nights would require one full day of recovery. Gradually, however, that ratio began to even out and every night partying now required its own full day of recovery time. This meant that for a typical weekend, no matter the amount of weed and couch time you logged on Sunday, it was never enough. Your body still needed time to recover, but you had run out of weekend. Monday, therefore, became a nasty bitch that arrived fast and hard and brought with it a mean bite the likes of which you had never felt. The idea of limping your way through a day of work with an award-winning hangover is bad enough, but unfortunately, that doesn’t fully explain the situation as there was another element that started to rear its ugly head during this period: The Monday Depressions.
Prior to now, hangovers had been, by and large, purely physical. Deep headaches and dizzy spells, nothing too awful. It was the punishment your body administered for all of your immoderate self-indulgence and to this point, we’d learned to simply sit back and take our medicine, all while lying comfortably on our couch. However, now, in our new post-college era, something was changing. It was becoming apparent that come Sunday, as your body struggled to repair itself for Monday morning’s deadline, a new enemy began to surface, one which we had not yet encountered. We now had greater concerns in our lives, or perhaps worse, we felt the pressure that we should have greater concerns in our lives. Due partially to the stress of our jobs and partially to our transformation into actual adults, we now felt less than care-free about our recreational activities and come Sunday afternoon, these factors invited a heavy dose of anxiety into our world. With a level head we’d have been able to deal with this additional stress in a reasonable manner, but given the wet-brained state we were in, there simply weren’t enough resources to deal with the problem effectively. Our bodies were still working over time to flush the toxins through our liver, however, our over-indulgence had created a massive bottle neck in the system and there was nothing we could do to ease the congestion. Our heads in the mean time, were deprived of the energy and rest necessary to reach their normal performance levels, so when these new bouts of anxiety began to arrive, our defenses were down and the struggle had an odd, psychological effect on our minds. Fortunately, whatever amount of anxiety arrived on Sunday was tolerable. You could still lie around and do your best to ignore it. But there was no escaping it when your alarm started the week on Monday morning. Anxiety was eagerly waiting when you awoke and hung around throughout the entire day. No longer were headaches and other physical side effects your arch nemesis. They had been replaced by these nasty little bouts of self-reflection. Every bad and questionable thing you had said and done over the weekend continually came to the forefront of your thoughts and was magnified ten fold in its severity. This new dimension of hangovers made them a hundred times worse and made you deeply question your lifestyle choices on a weekly basis.
With time, I have managed to tolerate the Monday depressions to an extent, though I guess I have had no real choice in the matter short of going dry which, at present, isn’t in the cards. Monday is simply an awful reality in which I spend one-seventh of my life. Each one is the same, though each week it seems different. I know what is coming and I know what to expect, although that never really helps, as I find myself navigating through that same treacherous morning every seven days as if it were uncharted territory:
7:30am: I awake to the sound of my phone vibrating on my bedside table. This is the 5th time I have woken up since I went to bed Sunday night. My panicked dreams ensured that I remained anxious throughout the evening while my night sweats made my sheets embarrassingly damp. The combination of terror and shivering made for quite the restless night.
7:50am: After hitting snooze twice, I roll out of bed and make my way to the shower. While leaning over to set the water temperature, I notice that my head is heavier than usual and my entire body feels water-logged. My skin is one giant, beer-soaked bar rag that needs to be rung out. After I finish cleaning up and dressing, I give myself a final look in the mirror. To anyone who doesn’t know any better, I imagine I look perfectly normal.
8:05am: I am far from normal. Each one of my senses is operating at about 80%. The feeling in my hands is a bit numb, my eye can’t focus clearly, I have the radio turned louder than should be required, my nose doesn’t work and for some reason my water taste thick and sweet. My stomach hurts but I have absolutely no appetite. I can’t wait to have some coffee. A car just honked and my heart dropped.
8:15am: I reach the office and am pleasantly surprised that none of my superiors have yet arrived. I will use this time to suck back coffee and scan the internet and hopefully prepare myself for coherent conversation. However, my fucking eyes still don’t work. It’s like I have three layers of blurry contacts on each eyeball. My anxiety soars while Sue, the random admin on the other side of the office, asks about my weekend as we wait for the coffee to finish brewing. I wonder what her response would be if I actually rehashed to her the belligerent details of my weekend? I wonder if she can hear my stomach growling?
8:30am: I am already on my second cup of coffee and am getting acclimated to being around normal, non-alcoholics. The bosses arrive and we have the normal banter about what each of us did over the weekend and we each do our best to pretend we care. I quickly print out a blog and head down to the 4th floor to take a shit. I normally only go out of my way like this on Mondays. It’s just that the combination of having to piss out of my ass and the possibility of having to bullshit my way through a conversation in the men’s room is too much to handle right now. I must admit though, another reason I do this is because I like to bring coffee with me to the shitter on days like this. I am in no hurry and don’t mind sitting for a spell. However, as you can imagine, walking into the stall with a print out under your arm and a cup of coffee doesn’t exactly scream “productivity” to any superior you may happen to encounter.
9:30am: I am on my 4th cup of coffee and any chance of getting some food down prior to lunch has long since passed. The problem is that I woke up anxious. Eating would help my anxiety, but I’m not hungry. Instead I drink a lot of coffee, which makes me more anxious and even less hungry. I can’t drink water right now, it still tastes thick. The chances of me answering my phone before lunch are -140%.
10:30am: I refresh my non-work email about every seven minutes. I am looking for any outside stimulation that will divert me away from work. The irony is that any email I receive right now is one that I probably don’t want to read. Every friend I was with this weekend currently feels that same way I do, so any email someone would send would be to retell a story that just couldn’t wait until later this afternoon. There is a very good chance that such an email would alert me to something I either need to repair, replace or apologize for. While I will be capable of laughing at this later this week, I am not equipped to hear about it in my present state. For some reason I continue to hit refresh.
11:00am: How the fuck did I spend $300 this weekend? While I am a bit upset, I am by no means surprised as this is a fairly common occurrence. There is no other part of my life where this type of frivolous spending is even remotely tolerated. Dropping $150 on a nice dinner is outrageous. However, for some reason if I spend twice that at bars and have absolutely nothing to show for it, I consider it overhead.
11:20am: I decide it would be best to head out a little early for lunch. On most Mondays I like to eat at the mall. This gives me a chance to eat quickly and alone and then walk around while I regroup. During these walks I usually give myself a little talking to. I typically tell myself that I can’t keep doing this and that we need to consider some lifestyle changes. I make a vow to go to bed early everyday this week and to take it easy this coming weekend. Maybe I will just rent movies and get some errands done. It will really feel great to wake up early on a Saturday and have the whole day instead of lying around hung over. These little aspirations help me power through the second half of the day. It’s time to grow up.
11:20am: (168 hours later): Alright, this past weekend got a little out of control, but this weekend is when I really need to take it easy. Maybe I’ll just stay in and rent a movie Friday, get up early on Saturday…
wastedcrescendo.com 
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