After a lifetime of heavy drinking through the holidays, the reasons for celebrating a sober Christmas

For most of my life, when the holidays approached, I went full-throttle with partying. By January 1, I would start each year pickled from a month of being intoxicated. I also began each year with that dreaded anxiety that accompanies being hungover, certain that the year ahead would bring doom.

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I had a colorful history of ruining holiday parties — or making them more memorable, depending on who you talked to. I wrecked my car in the early years coming home from a holiday soiree when I worked on Capitol Hill. One year I lost my car, found it two days later with a wrapped Christmas gift in the front seat. I opened it, and it was a knife set. Whoever gave it to me, a belated thank you!

And then, in no particular order, I knocked over our corporate Christmas tree in the lobby of a New York City high-rise — which was no small feat. I got kicked out of the luminous Good Housekeeping magazine holiday party by telling the publisher that she needed to “lighten up.” I passed out in a bar after a Christmas party — nothing unusual about that, except that it was in a stall in the men’s room, and a porter found me the next morning while cleaning.

I went to a Christmas party where Kevin Spacey was, and I don’t know who was more drunk, him or me. And then there was Barney the Dinosaur — that’s a long story. There were others, including Kal Penn — he was memorably adorned in Christmas lights. When I spoke to Kal a year or two after we partied together, I confessed not remembering how the night ended.

When I went home to Pittsburgh for the holiday break, I put the drinking into high-gear. Christmas with my mother was such a forced and stressful event that the only way to tolerate it was to get blind-ass drunk. And it was during these times that I was the lowest in how I felt about myself. She always made me feel less than, so I felt awful about myself around her.

It was demonstrated in the way I came out to my mother when I was 30, on Christmas Eve, not by telling her I was gay and proud of it but by blurting out that I was “sucking c**k In New York City.” That utterance was demeaning to her but more so to me. When I tell that story, people laugh, but it crystallizes how I felt about myself and my sexuality, distilled down to a sex act.

Clearly, the holidays brought out the worst in party-drunk John; however, some people would argue it was my best, because I was relied upon to be the merrymaker at each event. But what was going on underneath was that I didn’t deserve the silver and gold of Christmas, the presents that come with it, and the smiles from strangers on street corners.

The most wonderful time of the year, for me, was the most loathsome time of the year, when I felt I didn’t belong because I wasn’t surrounded by a loving family, children, and a spouse that were mine and didn’t reside in a house with chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

I thought the only way people would like me was if I was drunk, the party guy, the wild ass who drank to oblivion. I didn’t think people would like the “real John Casey,” whoever that was. To me, he was a loser, so I hid him behind my inebriation.

It’s been three years this month since I’ve had a drink, and coincidence or not, I’ve only been to a smattering of parties during these past few years. I make an appearance and leave quickly to come home to my dog, Freddy. I went to one last week. I could smell the booze coming off people’s breath, and it was a turn off. And I quickly got bored with useless small talk.

For so many reasons, it feels so good not to feel so bad after a holiday of binge drinking. My mental health has improved markedly, and so has my physical health. I don’t go home anymore or to my parents who no longer live in Pittsburgh. It’s just too much, and for reasons that span a lifetime, I’m much happier. I don’t have to worry about my mom and the horrible way she made me feel.

If I were to come out to her today, it would be as a sober man who is infinitely proud to be. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t hate myself. Is this new me, so to speak, selfish? Oh, yes, but for all the right reasons. That’s the difference between then and now, drunk and sober, and I am proud of what I’ve become. I write for this outlet, where so many read what I have to say.

My mother doesn’t read my columns, and that once bothered me tremendously. It made me drink. But I don’t care anymore. It’s her loss, and I have a new “parent” who is proud of me — me! For my writing and for all the other things I’ve done in my life that were never acknowledged and that I never took pride in because I thought no one cared. It turns out the only opinion that mattered was mine.

Yes, the holiday season is not the same without booze. It’s better. Do I miss all the craziness? Do I have any regrets? No to both. I did what I did, and at 57, I did what I had to do, and that was to stop drinking. And at 60, I have reached a point where I’m happy about who I am, what I’ve become, and the road ahead. It took a long time to get here, but now that I’m here, I don’t ever want to go back.

At the Christmas party, I briefly attended the other night, I told someone that I don’t drink anymore. “Are you in AA?” they asked me. “No, I never went to AA,” I replied. “So you quit cold turkey?” they responded with surprise in their voice. “Yes,” I said. “Wow, I could never do that.”

When I was asked at that party why I stopped drinking, I said, “Because I wanted to see if I could ever appreciate me being sober and if I could ever love myself. That, and I don’t want to knock down that lovely Christmas tree in the middle of the room.”

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