My soul needs to vent for a minute. Just bear with me.

Today is National Drink Wine Day, and I know this because I spied some decrepit Facebook posts I made from several years ago. There were assorted pics of me guzzling my beloved Chardonnay. God, I loved wine.

Wine was there when my mom died. Wine filled in the gap when I lost my job. Wine was something I used to make me more social and less angsty. If I drank enough, wine could squelch pretty much any icky feeling. Yup, it was a magical elixir.

Until it wasn’t.

At some point in 2015, I became a wino. That’s a nice way of saying alcoholic. Wino rolls off the tongue so much better when you’re drunk. There’s a mere two syllables instead of the convoluted five in the world alcoholism.

I gave up drinking cold turkey after my doctor admonished me for an unusually hefty bout of weight gain. That was followed up by some pretty disheartening bloodwork. When he asked if I had been drinking more than usual, I spit out my resounding “NO!” before he even finished the question. I knew I had a problem. My wallet told me so. (Good wine is pricey.) My jeans told me so. (I had ballooned to a size 40 waist.) And my cravings told me so. (I’d find any excuse to have a glass of wine over lunch—the earlier, the better.)

You know who didn’t tell me so? My friends. Because they had no idea. My drinking was usually done after work when I got home. Drinking alone is never a good sign. One glass became two which turned into three. Suddenly I found myself polishing off a bottle a night and not even feeling guilty about it. And what goes well with wine, mind you? Pasta, carbs and other sundry savory items.

After exactly one year of self-induced sobriety, I rationalized that I could start drinking wine again in moderation. Folks, that lasted exactly two days. Old habits die hard. New habits like drinking straight out of the bottle were introduced. By January 2nd, I realized I was starting to unravel and that’s when I stopped drinking for good.

The best part? Mercifully, I haven’t slipped. The worst part? Despite being three years sober, I still get twitchy when someone—usually a close friend—orders a glass of white wine around me. What I wouldn’t give to clink my wine glass with them instead of my now-standard-fare of club soda and lime.

You’d think I’d be over that by now. I’m not. #bitter

But what I am is sober. Irritated that I can never drink wine again, but sober. Oh, and remind me to delete those posts from a few years ago so I don’t go off on another tangent next year around this time, please. Rant over.