I have a habit, not so good, of pretending not to like something when I like it too much because I can't handle it.
When I like someone so much that it's ridiculous, I feel embarrassed that I become overly serious and clingy, so I try to pretend it's nothing special.
I still remember the feeling I had when I was six years old, when someone would take an interest in the picture I drew with all my heart and just randomly grab a crayon and scribble swirls on the picture, making it look like nothing special.
I try to make sense of things I like so absurdly by coming up with all sorts of reasons to make sense of them.
So I guess that's why you like alcohol.
Alcohol makes me more simple and honest.
Without being a shill, without pretending it's nothing, without being able to accept and push through the nonsensical as nonsensical.

---From the "Prologue"

Just as closing a refrigerator door opens the possibility of a cold drink a few hours later, and pouring a glass of booze in excitement opens the possibility of a headache the next day, closing a door always opens another door somewhere on the other side.
There is no such thing as a life that is completely 'closed'.
In that sense, my choice to close Hong Kong and open my drinking buddies was the most drinker-like decision of my life.
The choice is akin to willingly choosing tomorrow's hangover for the pleasure of the evening ahead.
Because life is the sum total of choices you make, but it's also the sum total of choices you don't make.
Because I like the present that is made up of the futures that have not been there.

---From "The Moment Alcohol Changed My Life"

A while ago, I reread Ted Chiang's original novel, "Story of Your Life."
The additional underlined part this time is the last paragraph where Lewis questions himself.
“I knew from the beginning where my destination was, and I chose a path that corresponded to that.
But am I heading towards the heights of joy or the heights of pain?” This is the dilemma I face every time I enter a bar.
Especially at that awkward, tricky time when you're trying to start drinking.
Is it the pinnacle of joy or the pinnacle of pain?
I'm still debating today whether I should buy a round-trip ticket for the strange train that goes to heaven and the return train goes to hell, or just walk quietly(?).

---From "Earthlings' Drinking Rules"

The advice I'd heard countless times from wine enthusiasts around me that if you get too caught up in wine, your household will go bankrupt suddenly became a vivid reality.
That's right.
It wasn't just a matter of buying expensive wine once.
It was a problem of the future where reality could not keep up with the rapid growth of the tongue's sense of touch.
Can I continue to tolerate a tongue that can no longer satisfy itself with even the most decent wines, a tongue whose hurdles for satisfaction are only getting higher? No, if things continue this way, the grapes I planted this year will perish before they even become wine.
I always thought the proverb, "A tongue that is three inches long can kill a man," was a warning about words, but I never dreamed that it could also be a warning about taste.

---From "Wine, Perhaps the Scariest Alcohol"

To be honest, I felt a little intimidated in front of the owner who asked, “Are you alone?” and the part-time workers who glanced at me.
But as I put a piece of pig's trotter in my mouth along with the chewy jellyfish and crunchy vegetables, the sour mustard sauce spread throughout my mouth and pushed all that away.
Although it was a table without any partitions, it felt like I had closed an invisible door and entered a room where only the cold pig's feet and I existed.
It seemed like it would be perfect if I just brought in one more being.
alcohol.
This required another level of courage, but since I was already eating pig's feet alone, why couldn't I have a drink with my afternoon drink?
Here, give me a cool bottle!
---From "Scenes of Drinking Alone"

I hurt my thigh while playing soccer.
As I was running away from the defender, turning the ball and turning, I felt a tingling pain from my knee to the back of my thigh, but after that, the back of my thigh kept getting so sore that I couldn't run properly.
While the 6th grandpa who was pushed aside by me was looking at me with a look of disgust (Oh, I really hate that grandpa!), the team members who heard my symptoms said that it was definitely a hamstring injury and that I should go to the hospital immediately because if I don't catch it early, it could become chronic.
It was an accurate diagnosis.
The doctor also advised regular physical therapy, saying that I should absolutely avoid strenuous exercise until I was completely healed.
Just before moving to the physical therapy room, I cautiously but urgently asked the question that had been my biggest concern throughout my diagnosis but that I had kept putting off until the very end.
“Isn’t it bad to drink alcohol?”

---From "Skin with Alcohol and Skin with Honey"