New Years Eve is a good excuse to get drunk and sing the song no one knows—or understands—the lyrics to. What, or who, is Old Lang Syne. Is he a guy or what? If you’re drunk enough, you don’t care who or what he is, you take him home anyway.

What’s all the excitement at midnight for anyway? We’re ringing in another year! Like last year? Was last year so exciting? No one I know is all a flutter over last year. New Years Eve is a good example of how hope springs eternal. This year will make up for all the other ones that sucked.

(And, keep in mind, the way to not break new year's resolutions is: don't  make them. They’re a set up for failure.  How do you live a year at a time, one day at a time seems long.  I have long, medium and short term goals, and when I resolve to do something, I do it one hour, sometimes one second at a time.)

The holiday season hasn’t been the  heartwarming, fun-filled, joyous hurrah as seen in the brochures.  The pressure’s on to be jolly. Jolly? I’ve been bombarded with movies, commercials and greeting cards of friends and families gathering, meanwhile, I’m sitting alone on the couch, in an old T-shirt and underwear.  The world is  red and green and I’m blue.

I've always treasured the holidays as that special time of year when one is  expected  to get drunk and overeat. On Christmases past, it was not unusual to find me home alone watching “It's a Wonderful Life”,  mascara flowing,  getting drunk,  sucking on a bong,  popping Quaaludes,  snorting coke, and passing out while elbow deep in a vat of candied  popcorn.  Or, perhaps, you'd find me in the bathroom,  cooling my  mascara caked face on the porcelain toilet bowl, getting rid of the popcorn and alcohol. Not something you'd find in the Norman Rockwell calendar.

For many of us  the holidays epitomize the “my life is not what it should be” feeling.  Would Norman Rockwell  have painted you home alone on Christmas, binging on Cheetos?

I don't drink, take drugs or gorge myself into oblivion anymore. I don't dig myself into a holiday hole anymore, (which I then decorate with recycled tinsel.) Therefore, I don’t hate myself in January anymore.

Forget trying to be happy, it’ll only get you depressed. Happy is overrated. Go for  authentic, as in real.

We often  miss out on  the moment at hand,  while  preoccupied  with  the way the moment ought  to be.  We paint  a  picture  of how the holidays  should go, and our pain  comes from the fact that life  doesn't match our picture.

To help over come self-consciousness arrive at parties armed with an agenda.  Oh, Vanna, I’ll take a vowel remember AEIOU.  Be  ATTENTIVE, ENTHUSIASTIC,  INQUISITIVE, ORIGINAL and UNDERSTANDING. Act like you work for People Magazine, get in there and don’t come out without learning something about someone new!  Everybody’s got a story.  Make small talk  bigger by bringing  up topics that interest you.  Each social event is an opportunity to practice being open and genuine.

And... if you're a recovering alcoholic, and people think you’re odd for not drinking, maybe the host insists you have a drink, you don't have to give them your tragic A.A.pitch.  Tell them, “no thanks,  I've had enough.”  If you're an ex-drunk, you won't be lying.

If you like what you read here, Email Oprah. But only if you LIKE it, bub!!!