My neurologist tells me Klonopin and alcohol act in a similar way on the brain.

My psychiatrist makes a point of telling me the same thing.

The tacit paternalism’s a bit annoying. It’s also adorable to the extent it assumes some measure of sway — or at least suasion — over my decision-making process.

My family physician (and the “family” part’s a misnomer in the context of a never-married, childless loner) harbors no such pretensions, but that isn’t the crux of the issue.

Unlike the specialists whose brain doctor credentials urge deference when considering a benzodiazepine prescription for someone who, once upon a perpetual bender, was a fifth in easy by cocktail hour, my family physician understands that the alcohol suppressed a manic lucidity which, if loosed all at once, unrestrained, could make me overbearing and unbearable.

The bourbon and the scotch subdued goal-driven hyperactivity — a productive neurosis which became progressively indistinguishable (to me) from acute anxiety. I was self-medicating, but to the outside observer, I was squandering genius. Those two interpretations of alcoholism weren’t mutually exclusive, but neither is the distinction one without a difference.

Removing the “medicine” carried real risk. First physical, from withdrawals, but that was managed deftly by a stoical ICU staff at St. Joseph’s/Candler in Savannah. Second mental, from previously undiagnosed psychological disorders suddenly given free rein, liberated as they were in November of 2016 from the tyranny of a powerful central nervous system depressant.

Managing a manic’s mental surfacing from a 15-year, dark liquor, deep-diving expedition isn’t for the faint of heart. In my case, it was a bit like observing a tiger emerge from sedation. As Google’s AI tool helpfully explains, “tigers often wake up feeling annoyed or confused” and although the process “can take hours,” there’s some risk of a “rapid recovery” in which case “staff must move quickly to finish procedures and clear the area.”

Two months into sobriety, I was building bridges to the moon, to employ a stylized description of the thinking typical of manic episodes, during which delusions of grandeur manifest as lofty goals set in a state of impatient annoyance. (“Finish procedures and clear the area.”)

Goal-driven behavior’s conducive to success, particularly when paired with minor genius and an indefatigable work ethic. Sometimes, leaving that sort of disturbed disposition free to choose its own adventure accrues to the benefit of humanity, but typically not without friction. Usually, it needs a restrictor plate lest the car should fly off the tracks. In simple terms: It can be a red flag if the “moonshot” in “moonshot mindset” isn’t metaphorical.

The problem with psychiatrists is that in the presence of this particular nail, they seem to reach for everything in the toolkit except the hammer. I’ve endured (and paid for) countless hours of seminar-style lectures delineating a dizzying array of approaches to managing anxiety, mania and the like.

Almost invariably, those approaches entail the use of prescription drugs with poorly-understood pharmacology and unpredictable side effects. The presence, in the office setting, of pens, stationery and sticky notes branded with the names of those same drugs doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the cynical mind.

There’s nothing mysterious about the pathways through which benzodiazepines work. That pharmacology is very well-understood. Nor is there a lot of ambiguity about the potential side effects, one of which is severe addiction. And that’s the tragic irony of addictive substances: They’re addictive precisely because they work.

When pressed by a skilled debater adept at preempting counterarguments, psychiatrists will concede that on a narrow enough definition of the problem, and forgetting about addiction potential and myriad other risks which accompany long-term benzodiazepine use, nothing’s going to do the trick quite like a daily dose of Klonopin, a benzodiazepine which is both strong and long-tailed. It will, infallibly, curb anxiety and suppress some symptoms of mania.

My psychiatrist’s skeptical of the benzo-only approach. And I’m skeptical of his profession’s penchant for the gavage-style administration of antidepressants, which by now has an estimated one in six Americans on psychiatric drugs, to sometimes disastrous effect.

My neurologist, by contrast, is mostly neutral about the benzos, aside from the boilerplate addiction warning. Klonopin can compliment Keppra so on paper at least, the combination makes sense in her field. “I’ve never really–” “Never gotten a buzz from it, I know,” she cut me off and finished my sentence at our most recent appointment.

We have the same Klonopin conversation every six months. “And you’re still just taking half of the 0.5 mg?” “Yeah. Generally. Sometimes I’ll take two halves in a day.” She waved her left hand in a shoo gesture as her right scribbled something on a chart. “If that’s really how you’re taking it, I don’t see an issue,” she said, reading from the usual script. “You’re on the lowest dose. If you ever decide to go off it, we wouldn’t even need to taper you.”

And that was that. That’s always that. Neurology appointments are all the same. She asks a series of questions presumably related to seizures (“Have you at any point lost track of entire days?”) to which I respond with a series of jokes (“All the time, but not like you mean.”). She asks if I’m still alcohol free, I respond emphatically in the affirmative (“November will be X years.”) and she pretends to be impressed (“Amazing, congratulations.”). Then she performs something that looks and feels quite a lot like a field sobriety test, which I apparently pass with flying colors. She shakes my hand, I pay the copay and I’m out the door.

The whole thing’s an excuse to go to the beach. All of my doctors save my dentist are located on or near the island where I vacationed and lived for a third of my adult life, which means every doctor appointment doubles as a beach trip. The beach trips, in turn, are culinary excursions as much as they are coastal jaunts — excuses to eat good seafood and, just as importantly for my off-putting vainglory, flaunt a wardrobe that’s out of place in the banal tedium of everyday life.

I’ve increased the frequency and expanded the geographic scope of those excursions such that my existence in early-middle age is that of a wandering bon vivant who’s forgotten how to socialize, but wants to remember. I tour the American South, reading, writing, shopping and dining. It could certainly be worse, although it’s a marked deviation from what I might’ve said had you asked me, at 22, what I’d like to be doing with my life two decades hence.

FARM, which describes itself first and foremost as a community-focused establishment dedicated to supporting Lowcountry farmers, fishermen and “artisan producers,” isn’t actually on Hilton Head Island. It’s in Bluffton, which most people only know for a pair of chintzy Tanger outlet malls, but which is also home to a rare example of an old town revitalization project gone swimmingly. That’s where FARM is: In old town.

I left the resort more than an hour before my reservation. It’s only a half-hour drive (less, actually), but anybody who knows the island knows to double estimated travel time between 4:00 and 6:00 pm to account for traffic, which bottlenecks predictably at the same two traffic lights, but clears just as reliably about half a mile before the first of two bridges to the mainland.

While I waited in the logjam, Apple CarPlay interrupted the soundtrack I’d chosen for the drive — The OutRunners, a collaborative effort from Curren$y and Harry Fraud — to tell me I had a text. I almost ignored it on the assumption it was a reservation reminder from FARM. But the area code — 865 or “VOL” — suggested it was a telegram from Knoxville, Tennessee, my alma mater and the movie set for my life’s most cinematic exploits. I reached down and pulled the phone off the wireless charging pad in the center console.

“Remember this?” someone wondered, captioning a picture of the cover art for Jerry Seinfeld’s I’m Telling You for the Last Time, an HBO standup special by one of history’s greatest comics. Even if I hadn’t recognized the area code, I would’ve known the sender. It was my oldest friend. He accompanied me on many a family vacation to the island in the 1990s and we shared an apartment in Bluffton during the summer of 2002. That Seinfeld standup special, on DVD, was a favorite of ours. He’d found the compact disc version at a used books store. “Of course,” I told him. “I can recite it from memory.”

As I drove over the first bridge, I thought of sending him a picture. But in a rare moment of real-time introspection, it occurred to me that might be pompous. There I was, on a random March Monday, speeding around the beach island where the two of us spent carefree summers as stoned teenagers, while he was picking through second-hand CDs at a thrift shop in upper-east Tennessee.

“Hope you’re doing well,” I typed, eschewing a paradise pic for generic, textual well-wishing. Then I turned the music back up.

Curren$y isn’t for everyone, and I can’t say I’ve ever counted myself a fan. After nearly a quarter century straddling the line between mainstream and underground, he defies easy categorization. More beat poet than rapper, the now-44-year-old’s both famous and not — a fixture, but not an institution. His affinity for classic cars is eclipsed only by a Willie Nelson-level affection for marijuana, the long-term effects of which are increasingly evident in his music, if not in his (still prolific) work ethic.

Curren$y projects are like spoken-word improv, only drained of focus and energy. His once endearing monotone has morphed, over two decades, into a lethargic, nasal drone, which at times borders on unwitting self-parody. (Tracks often begin with a sky-high Curren$y chanting, “La-da, la-da, la-da, la-da, la-da” for so long you fear you might fall asleep. Or that he will.)

On most scores, The OutRunners plays like any other Curren$y project, but it’s one of those rare albums which captures, encapsulates and even becomes the vibe it was plainly chasing. It’s also an example of right artist, right producer, right time. Released in July of 2020, The OutRunners was a relaxing, understated celebration of life at a moment when the sociopolitical zeitgeist was defined by existential anxiety and death.

If Curren$y’s overrated as a lyricist, Harry Fraud’s underrated as a producer.  The underground hip-hop community will tell you Curren$y and Fraud have “magic chemistry.” But the truth’s the same as it is with a lot of Fraud’s frequent collaborators: His production makes mediocre artists sound like good artists and good ones sound great, which presumably accounts for how busy he stays.

2012’s five-track EP Cigarette Boats, the first Curren$y-Fraud collaboration, is considered a minor classic. The OutRunners isn’t that, but it’s a thematically immersive, eminently cohesive project — an atmospheric “whole” that’s repetitive but never boring and occasionally stumbles into socioeconomic profundity. (“I’m sure change gon’ take some years, But I hope it all clears before my son hit the streets, tryna shift gears,” Curren$y raps on “Gold and Chrome,” fretting the worst public health crisis in a century might spoil his son’s sixteenth birthday.)

Despite the traffic, I made it to old town Bluffton early. The streets are claustrophobic such that 15mph is the maximum comfortable speed, a reflection of the leisurely tempo of Lowcountry life in general. The ponderous pace was an affront to the Affalterbach heritage of my CLE 53 and clashed with the lively meter of “In The Coupe,” an ode to jet-setting and track-racing. Still, Curren$y’s chorus felt apt in the moment: “Roll around in the coupe with the beat on loop, Soundtrack to the movie that I’m living through.”

I spent the spare 20 minutes before my reservation enjoying the view from Calhoun Street Dock, which really is nice. I’d chosen a black-and-white ensemble for the evening: White Carlota Barrera denim jacket, black Givenchy t-shirt with a white 4G star print, black jeans, white Louis Vuitton belt, black-white CDG-edition Nike Terminators and, for my sundries, the just-released Antigona Stamped grained leather backpack from Givenchy, making its debut public appearance.

(The Givenchy client rep told me there were only nine of those backpacks in the company’s US network, which means I’m very likely the only person in South Carolina with that particular accessory. That I derive satisfaction from that speaks to an unhealthy materialism, upside-down priorities and an emotional immaturity that’d be more pitiable than galling if I weren’t aware of it.)

To walk in the door at FARM is to step immediately and directly into the downstairs dining room. There’s no real host stand, just an impossibly-cramped lectern space that backs into an open kitchen.

Allow me a word on open kitchens. With exceptions for establishments where the dedication of the kitchen staff isn’t even a question, let alone in question (i.e., two- and three Michelin-starred restaurants), you do want an open kitchen as a diner. Forget the noise. That’s a small price to pay to see who’s preparing your food, how much they’re enjoying it (or, too often, not enjoying it) and how diligent they are about their profession.

A rule of thumb says line cooks should look and act like people who want to be sous chefs one day. At FARM, they do. And far from annoying, the steady, but not panicked, “hands” cadence that serves as the soundscape for downstairs diners and bar guests is reassuring. It indicates something’s always being plated, but never in too much of a rush and, just as importantly, that someone nominally independent of the production process is looking at the plates before they go out.

With the (not insignificant) caveat that FARM’s see-through downstairs setup could mask underlying friction, the FOH (front of house)-BOH (back of house) rapport is quite good. And the waitstaff exhibit no outward signs of exasperation at the near constant imperative of running one another’s food. Friends or not, the willingness among waitstaff to help each other out is more a function of FARM’s tip-sharing system than it is camaraderie. When all tips are pooled, every FOH employee has a stake in every guest’s experience.

One obvious drawback of that system is that no single guest (or single table) receives the royal treatment. When tips are pooled and divided evenly among the staff, there’s no incentive for any one staff member to go the extra, extra mile in the hope of securing that evening’s outlier big tip for themselves. I tend to be that outlier big tip and as such, I’m instinctually (selfishly) averse to restaurants preempting my capacity to buy better service, which is what a pooled-tip system does.

Do note: There’s a correlation between tip size and propensity to dine out. So it’s not necessarily the case that you’re doing yourself a favor as a restaurant by instituting a system that promotes uniformity of service, even if that service is uniformly excellent. Part and parcel of success in the restaurant business is giving servers and bartenders an incentive to ingratiate themselves to big-tipping regulars. It’s not about being obsequious, it’s about recognizing the clientele who keep the doors open and the lights on in the event the broader business slows down. Disincentivizing that dynamic might seem like a good idea from a top-down management perspective, but a bottom-up view reveals the potential pitfalls.

The ambiance at FARM is deliberately rustic, but it’s unmistakably upscale all the same. Between the din from the kitchen and the close-quarters seating, the persnickety — and the legions of retirees who inhabit Bluffton’s galaxy of golf communities are nothing if not persnickety — might find downstairs dining at FARM to be uncomfortable. But for someone like me, a food snob who prefers an open kitchen and enjoys the Arcadian luxury motif typical of the farm-to-table trend, it checks every box.

I sat at the bar, of course. If it were 2016 instead of 2026, the bar manager — Cheyanne, whose very name invokes bar managers and who looks the part besides — would’ve needed every drop of the three-quarters-spent Basil Hayden bottle two shelves up the wall and, more to the point, every drop of the full backup bottle behind it too. But that was then, this is now and now the only drugs I’m allowed are caffeine and Klonopin. Although FARM doesn’t have espresso, they do have French press service. And they pretend not to be annoyed when you order it.

It was actually my second visit to FARM. The experience I had on my first visit was something very close to perfection, which the skeptic in me chalked up to luck. I was there on the right night, ordered the right things, etc. I fully expected my second visit to underwhelm, at least relative to that first experience. I was glad to be proven wrong. FARM delivered an encore that was at least as good as the first showing and on some vectors even better.

At Cheyanne’s urging I had the beet salad as a starter instead of the roasted oysters I enjoyed on my first visit. Seemingly every restaurant with farm-to-table pretensions has a beet salad these days, but this is no ordinary beet salad. FARM uses golden beets, and the only red on the plate comes courtesy of a chili oil which takes you right up to the threshold of “too hot,” but doesn’t quite cross it.

The heat’s front and center (if I’m honest, it could probably be dialed back a touch), but the acidity and tang from an exceptionally bright vinaigrette is the perfect foil. Chevre adds an element of lemony luxe, and the mint leaf’s more than a garnish. Nothing’s wasted in this dish, and accordingly I left nothing on the plate.

That recommendation convinced me to give Cheyanne free rein over my remaining menu choices. So, instead of the orecchiette alla vodka I would’ve almost surely ordered as a second, I chose “shrimp rice.” Shrimp rice, particularly when described in such unimaginatively straightforward terms, is something I’d never order of my own accord. I’m agnostic at best about shrimp, and there’s only so far you can elevate jerk spice and rice. I was intrigued, though, by the promise of a “peanut benne crunch.” Between that and Cheyanne’s endorsement I went shrimping. And didn’t regret it.

Accidental or not (there’s the skeptic in me coming out again), the balance of flavors in FARM’s shrimp rice borders on epiphanal. A burnt-allium aioli, which by all accounts should be overkill (or at best superfluous) adds fathoms of depth. Like the mint leaf on the beet salad, a squeeze of lime was no perfunctory afterthought — it was deliberate and served as an embedded palate cleanser.

The main course posed a challenge. I don’t eat a lot of red meat these days, so the hanger steak was out, the pork chop too and I’ve never ordered a chicken parm that was anything other than a chicken parm. That left a red snapper dish with the same Carolina gold rice and peanuts I’d just eaten. Not wanting to repeat the second dish, I ordered an alternative red snapper dish — with an olive, fennel and tomato broth — from FARM’s Italian tasting menu.

The kitchen’s snapper acqua pazza execution was admirable. Acqua pazza should be simple but not boring. FARM’s take is that, and their incorporation of chili into the broth winks playfully at a (likely inaccurate) origin story for the “crazy” in “crazy water.”

As a quick aside, the presence at FARM of an Italian tasting menu separate and distinct from the main menu feels unnecessary. It saved me from repeating rice and peanuts that evening, but in general it’s a distraction. No one goes to a modern farm-to-table spot for a high-end Italian tasting menu. And while I’m sure the managing partners can articulate a rationale, I can assure you there isn’t one.

Overall, my second visit to FARM was the single-best culinary experience I’ve had since my last dinner at Knoxville’s J.C. Holdway, named among America’s best restaurants for 2025 by The New York Times and a kitchen which boasts a Blackberry Farm pedigree. Suffice to say FARM’s executing at a very high level, and the partners have now opened a sister restaurant in Savannah called Common Thread, which I look forward to frequenting on my next trip to the Perry Lane.

While I waited for Cheyanne to deliver my check, I broke my rule about no phones at the bar top. I make a point of being present in the real world even as the rest of society’s lost in a virtual, doom-scrolling dystopia. I fished my iPhone from the backpack and looked up FARM’s website again to see if I’d missed anything about their backstory. As it turned out, I had. In 2021, FARM launched the Rootstock Community Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to addressing mental health.

As I piloted the CLE back over the bridges to the resort, I felt vaguely inebriated. It wasn’t the Klonopin. I don’t take that until bedtime. And it wasn’t the coffee. I was so lost in the food I didn’t make it halfway through the French press.

At that moment, the realist melancholic in me was begrudgingly compelled to consider another explanation: The distinct possibility, saccharine and hopelessly clichéd as it is, that I was high on life.

Meanwhile, Apple CarPlay had transitioned from The OutRunners to the only other Curren$y album in my iTunes library: Still Stoned On Ocean.

FARM Bluffton

The OutRunners by Curren$y and Harry Fraud