I learned last week that my Gen Z cousin doesn’t smoke weed or drink alcohol. I’ve seen the headlines: Gen Z isn’t buying alcohol, Gen Z is sober. Still, I was surprised to encounter it in the wild.
It made me feel judged, not because my cousin is judgmental, but because youth feels powerful to me in a way it never did when I was young. I am always scanning the horizon for an authority figure to tell me what to do. More and more lately, that authority seems to come from young people. I wondered if I ought to be sober, too, whether my cousin had the right idea, moving through the world with a clear head.
**
I didn’t drink at all when my migraines were bad, but now that they’ve improved, I delight in an occasional cocktail. For years, I thought I couldn’t get high without having a panic attack. Now that my anxiety is better, I can.
I’ve thought about my renewed ability to enjoy marijuana a lot, actually. Earlier this year, I was on a deck with old friends, overlooking a river in beautiful British Columbia. The night was crisp. Our collective kids were sleeping inside the house nearby. We were drinking and getting high, as millennials do, I guess.
I wanted to ask my friends about a developing theory of mine, which is that—thanks to a therapeutic dose of antianxiety meds—I had regained the ability to get pleasantly high. None of my friends are medical doctors, but one of them is a therapist and another is a lawyer, so close enough. I asked whether it was true, this thing I had experienced with Zoloft and weed. They told me yes, it was true, with complete confidence. We all laughed, especially me.
**
I went to Ketchikan, Alaska last month with my friend, Shawn. In the kitchen of her grandma’s house, her dad says he wants to do mushrooms someday. He drinks too much. Shawn tells him he’d need to stop drinking before doing mushrooms, but he waves it off.
We are having tea made of usnea, a type of lichen that grows in Ketchikan. Shawn’s cousin told us that usnea tea is healing, so we gathered usnea and boiled it in Shawn’s grandma’s house, which is like a time capsule from 1980, if the time capsule washed ashore on a spectacular rocky coast in Ketchikan. The tea is terrible. Shawn’s dad likes it.
I did mushrooms once, a long time ago. On them, I had an epiphany about the passage of time that, with twenty years hindsight, seems extremely banal. I admire Shawn’s dad’s interest, though. He says he wants to reset his personality.
**
My doctor refuses to refill my Zoloft prescription unless I come in for an appointment. I go grudgingly. She asks how I’m doing. I tell her I’m good. I tell her I’m still thinking about tapering off Zoloft. She tells me, like she did last year, that I can stay on it.
At our last appointment, at my request, she switched my prescription from one 100 mg tab to two 50 mg tabs daily, to make it easier to taper off. I’ve spent the last year taking two pills every morning and thinking about tapering.
This year she says: “Live your life,” and switches my prescription back to the 100 mg tablet.
“But!” I say.
“We can switch it back when you’re ready,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say, which feels like too little.
**
My therapist tells me that anxious people often see things in black and white. She means me, though she doesn’t spell it out. Of course it’s true; I don’t know how to think about my feelings with any nuance. It turns out she’s bringing this up because she wants me to try EMDR. I ask her if it will reset my personality. She says no.
**
I am forever longing for an authority figure. This is what I was getting at that night in British Columbia with my friends—my dream, a fantasy. Picture it: the end of a doctor’s appointment. Sunlight pouring into the exam room from across the parking lot, illuminating the pamphlets about birth control and vaginal dryness. The doctor with her matter-of-fact haircut, asking whether I have any additional questions.
Me saying, “Yes, is it true?”
The doctor asking, “Is what true?”
Me explaining: “Everything I believe.”
The doctor, with all the authority of her title, nodding her head.
“Yes, absolutely.”
Kid Springfield 