Alcohol consumption has always been the cornerstone of our otherwise lackluster friendship. Thus, many of us were surprised you chose, as your New Year’s resolution, to slander drinking when it’s done so much to render you somewhat bearable. Your selfish sobriety and egotistical health kick have stomped to death the feng shui of our friend group, which has been forced to experience you not drinking yourself through post-holiday despondency like a proper parent.

We moms and dads had an arrangement. Getting the kids together under the guise of playdates so we could consume booze and prescription accouterments without judgment was your brainchild. Without that Chardonnay-Klonopin camouflage to dull the mirth, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, and every irritating encounter with one of our children during the sixty-hour tribulation known as the weekend have become the social equivalent of a SpaghettiOs enema.

After you ruined New Year’s brunch with your sanctimonious decree, the Harleys eliminated booze from Ricky’s second birthday party at Bounce ‘N Sip. We’d been looking forward to reenacting the toddler’s inaugural gala, when bourbon-soused adults battled for dominion over the giant bouncy slide and libidinous parents dipped their toes into adultery in the sullied ball pit. We all contracted pink eye and syphilis, and it was glorious.

What has followed is a succession of dry gatherings as we keep pace with your piousness: the Warners’ bourbon-less christening; the Rodriguez’s piano recital when we were relieved of our flasks and mescaline for heckling some maestro butchering “Mary Had A Little Lamb”; even our friend group’s gay couple, the McCowans, caved to the politically correct rhetoric and canceled their weekly vodka ice luge, which had made game night more competitive.

Then came rock bottom, last Friday, when Dave and Judy sent a Paperless Post forbidding liquor and cocaine at their gender reveal party. For three hours, twenty-six sober adults assembled IKEA baby furniture while guessing the sex of the tax dependency exemption growing inside Judy.

Truth is, many of us only became parents to fit in during play-date benders. Rather than invest emotional currency meeting new friends, we made the responsible decision to bear children for the sake of the group. None of us are qualified to be parents on our own. But together we form a relatively effective (if blood-alcohol questionable) border wall around our progeny. An inebriated but still aggressive throng of testosterone capable of fist-fighting potential pedophiles inside a Dave & Buster’s, ensuring none of the children become unfed or kidnapped during our playdates. Without this tipsy synergy, we are putting the kids at risk.

Your dry January is murdering our children.

When was the last time you lit a fart on fire with a sacramental candle at a First Communion? Do you even remember kidnapping that Chuck E. Cheese mascot and ransoming him to the manager for some ecstasy and cheesy bread? Who are you anymore?

Now you’re threatening us with a dry February, which is crazier than that time you disguised a keg as a short, fat kid and snuck it into the Christmas concert. Many of us haven’t had a drink in weeks. We’re sleeping better. Exercising. Saving money. Reading books. Downloading podcasts. We’re having sex with our spouses again — is that what you want, you sick pervert?

We need to fall off this conventional wagon before we become those parents that sit in the front row at social functions — skinny, healthy, and successful. If we don’t start taking our drinking more seriously, that’s where this is headed. Sweater vests. TED Talks. Sharing video recipes on Facebook.

The line has been drawn. Either you’re one of those front-row assholes, or you show up at Tuesday’s PTA meeting and take a seat with us assholes in the back of the auditorium, right next to our short, chubby nephew, little Sammy Adams.