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She Gave Up Booze for Pills and Felt …

Just following doctor’s orders

Bob Merckel
2 min readFeb 6, 2023
glass of whisky with a padlock on it
No booze for you. For now. Image by Sergey via Adobe

I was working with one of my lovelies the other day, a really vibrant, beautiful and funny Spanish woman to whom I teach 1–2–1 Business English.

A couple weeks ago she’d told me that she wasn’t going to drink for a month, because of some medication that she’d been prescribed.

“Ahh, Dry January.” I nodded.

“No, no, no, darling. I don’t fall for those groupie things.”

The lesson was coming along very well, and we took a break from some interviewing practice and CV revision.

“So, no booze for the past couple weeks,” I said. “How do you feel?”

“What means … aburrido?” she asked with a heavy sigh.

“Bored,” I told her.

“Yes, I’m boring now.”

I quickly reminded the difference between -ed adjectives and those ending in -ing. One is how we feel (ie, terrified), and the other is what makes us feel that way, (ie, terrifying).

“Yes, I remember. But really. I’m boring now. Everyone told me, ‘Oh, you’ll have so much energy! You’ll feel healthy and de-toxed and you’ll sleep better and you’ll lose weight and it will be fantastic’.”

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Bob Merckel
Bob Merckel

Written by Bob Merckel

Author of "Salute" Editor: Age of Empathy, The Memoirist | English teacher/language consultant in Barcelona and Provincetown.

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