Charles Baudelaire wrote:INTOXICATION
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, all that flies all that sighs, all that rolls, all that sings, all that speaks... ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
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Here's a poem for support and inspiration, @Chenda.
I'm on zero alcohol as well.
I would guess everyone knows the original in the French speaking world, but, if not:
http://www.poesie.net/baudel1.htm
Actually, the French word s'enivrer is quite poetic and enhances the metaphor of it all. It's not about alcohol of course. And for me, it's not about escaping either. It's about being utterly intoxicated with the world.
Just so:
Henri Michaux wrote:
« Que donnerait une distillation du monde? » demandait, émerveillé, un homme, ivre pour la première fois.
'What would a distillation of the universe yield?' wondered a man, drunk for the first time.