Recap of 13th Living Out Loud project: Drinkin' buddies

I am overwhelmed at the number of folks who responded to this month's theme. Apparently everyone has some sort of relationship with booze, good or bad. We have 15 entries and five of those are from new participants! It's also neat to see the range of everyone's interpretation of this theme. You all surprise and impress me every month. So without further ado, let's check out the entries: Jeb's My Old but Rarely-Seen Friend, John Barleycorn I admire his dedication to the finer qualities of scotch. Personally I think it tastes like dirt. But I also like the image of Jeb throwing back tequila shots. :)

Gina's Drinkin' Buddies - NOT I can imagine that working as a volunteer EMT, you only see the bad side of alcohol. Moderation sounds like the way to go. It also goes to show you that while drunk dwarfs sound like they would be funny, they're not so much in real life.

Kim R's Drinkin's Buddies Indeed, it ain't easy being green.

Rachel's Without you Isn't it funny how the booze can seem like a character all its own in our lives and not always a passive one.

Jen's Closing Time Here's to being a cheap date! I love it too! And I can totally understand using alcohol to slow down my brain without necessarily turning it off.

Candice's To all the cocktails I've loved before I'm glad your best friend and your husband, who seem on opposite ends of the drinking spectrum, both support you so well. And I'm gonna have to try one of these mythical pear mojitos at PF Changs.

Peg's Hi, My Name is Peg, and ... You bring up an interesting point of how your kids would react to your drinking. I've never experienced my parents even a little tipsy and I could see how it would be hard to explain.

SuziCate's Jose Cuervo Is Not My Friend I'm no fan of tequila myself. It just stinks to me! Rich loves it, though. I like the idea of healthy relationships with liquids.

Deb's I'd Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me I can't agree more with the biggest problem with excessive drinking being missing out on stuff.

Karal's To retch or not to wretch I laughed out loud at the confusion over retch and wretch (and Googled the spelling for both).

Rich's Cause I'm Clever When I'm Drunk My husband is a late bloomer to the drinking scene but quite clever. We seem to make a good team taking turns having a few too many.

Kim S's But the Bush is Comfortable! I hear ya about the baby birthday parties being more our style these days than swinging at the club. But yeah, social lubrication makes a big difference in some situations as to how much fun happens. Just look at the dance floor at any dry wedding reception.

Megan's Straight Edge Girl The first thing I thought after reading this was "Oh my God, I forgot about mojitos! I love mojitos!" Ahem. Then I realized how it is a big advantage to have time to figure out your relationship with alcohol on your own terms.

Amy's A Complicated Relationship You know I've never had a tab at a bar. Probably because I feared when it was time to pay up the total would floor me. I'm trying to appreciate food more myself these days so I can see how alcohol helps that. Here's to putting alcohol in its place!

And my own It's so good!

As always I had a hard time picking a winner. Everyone did a great job of sharing something personal, and that really means a lot to me. Some were funny, some were touching, some were a little sad. The best one for me, though, was Karal's since it was a bit of all of them. I laughed out loud over the play on words and I got all verklempt when she talked about disappointing her friend. So Karal is our winner this month and earns a $20 Amazon gift card. (Since I'm way behind on delivering prizes, I've decided to keep them simple going forward. I'm sure no one is writing their entries simply for the chance at a prize.)

Thank you all for playing along. Thank you for having as much fun with this as I am. Thank you for reading. Thank you for stepping a bit out of your comfort zones. And thank you for living out loud!