I have a drinking problem.

Or I have a problem drinking. Or maybe I have a problem drinking on the medication I’m on.

Either way, standing in the shower trying to sober up at 10 am because I’m still hammered from the night before is not where I want to be.

Admitting this, knowing people who read this blog know me as some sort of a professional, is just as hard as it was here – almost three years ago. See how far I’ve come in three years? Ugh, that hurts.

But I’m not the only one in this place right now – our culture has a drinking problem. But I’ll take one for the team – I’ll admit that I can’t drink.

If I can’t drink and make good decisions –

If I can’t drink in moderation –

Then I can’t drink.

I want to feel better about myself.

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“You’re not the first person to make this mistake, and you’re not the last,” my friend Vincent tells me.

After a shower, a nap and a lot of coffee, we’ve gone to the David Thauberger exhibit at the Mackenzie Art Gallery.

I put my arms around my friend’s waist and rest my head on his shoulder. “Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I ask him for the third or fourth time.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says. “No one died.”

The colours of “Danceland” seem extraordinarily bright when you’re looking at the canvas in real life – much brighter than the flashes of colour I remember from last night – the lights from the bar, the glow from the e-cigarette I was mysteriously smoking, the hue from the moon shining into someone else’s bedroom – all those “real” colours are subdued in my foggy recollection.

Thauberger – one of my favourite painters – describes himself as a realist. His colours are what I love about his work: his purple skies and bright orange grain elevators are not exactly realist, but standing in the gallery, leaning on Vincent’s warm, calm body, it strikes me they are more real than what I lived last night. My emotions I feel from the painting are more real now too.