One neat orange juice please, thank you.

This is my usual order each time I walk into a place that serves alcohol. Sometimes it changes to a diet coke, although that usually depends on how gassy I am feeling at the moment.
I'll be honest, I look around the bar after placing my order just to check if I was low enough. What follows next is the silent smirk of the bartender. Who I'm sure thinks of me as some kid who got a high just by walking inside a bar.
But he doesn't know the reason behind my amateurish order. About the horrible medical problem I suffer from. Which is commonly known as the Doctor's Advice.

Some six years back I suffered from acute pancreatitis or pancreitis I am still not sure. It was terrible pain that makes you want to wish there is a god somewhere, who can just clap his hands together and take your life away in an instant. I must have sent him atleast a 100 instant prayers per day to rid me of my pain by snapping the life chord, but I guess those prayers never made it past the ozone layer. So much for the holes in it.

Years passed and I continued to whisper orders without once questioning the doctor's logic. So once I sat at home twirling a stirrer in my neat orange juice, pondering at my plight. Some really startling questions popped up in my mind. Like, there is some problem in my pancreas, but alcohol usually affects the liver. Which means either the liver secretly passes excess alcohol to the pancreas or maybe my pancreas are those snooty neighbours who throw a strop by callign the cops on the party next door. Anyhow, it just didn't make a lot of sense.

But to be honest, I was too tempted to try what I was missing. Call it the lure of the forbidden or the non-existent peer pressure. Non-existent because I am blessed with some lucky bastards who don't let me drink. They think I am a better designated driver than a drinking buddy. And frankly, who has ever got lucky picking up a girl whilst holding a virgin mojito?

I'v decided that I am going against my doctor's prestigious educational degree and well compensated concern. At the risk of drinking myself to an early grave, I've decided to flirt with booze. I've watched people drink themselves silly and act completely bonkers. I want to do that too. I don't want to be the guy who watches people roll on the floor and then takes them back home. I want people to clean my vomit. If not as a friend then as someone who can ruin a nice sofa in their expensive apartment.

Lastly and probably the strongest reason why I drink is so that when I die because my pancreas can't take the load of a grey goose or whatever, people can say 'He went on a high'!!