So at some point yesterday, when my hangover was finally beginning to subside, I decided that I was going to make an honest attempt at a month of sobriety. I say attempt, not because I think I am incapable, but simply because since I started
really drinking I never gave the idea of stopping any pause. I am sure it will be a good thing. I can't say that alcohol has really done anything but cause me problems. It's fun at the time of course, but it feels like it has been far too many months. I am starting to realize that drinking
every night is beginning to take a toll on me. Not just physically. Though there is that too. I can't remember the last day (aside from today) where I went to work without some measure of a hang over. I forgot what waking up without vertigo felt like. I forgot that once I didn't have to take a twenty minute shower just to get my head together. I forgot that energy drinks did something other than fuel my stomach ache.
There is more than that though. Like many alcoholics (though I do not consider myself to be one) I was settling into a routine. Every day after work I'd swing by the same shop and pick up a six. I'd start drinking far too late at night, and toward the end I was finishing it up when the birds were starting to sing. This, as one can most certainly imagine, is not a good thing as it results in the aforementioned morning. One I repeated far too many times. I was trying to get away from the physical aspect of it though. We've all said and done some indescribably stupid things at some point during our relationships with alcohol, but I've found that even if I didn't, which to my credit was most of the time, I would always wake and think that I did. It provoked a certain sense of guilt. Almost always. Like the fact that I drank at all was a
wrong thing. It didn't stop me, of course, but in retrospect it probably should have.
It stopped being something I did socially almost immediately. Anywhere I went, a beer was involved, whether it was to snag a bite to eat with a friend, or simply kick it and watch a movie. Speaking of movies, yeah, every movie I saw in the theater I did intoxicated. Any new movie that someone talks about I always think to myself: "Oh yeah, I think I saw that in the theater, and I was
trashed. Maybe that's why they think it sucked and I loved it."
It stopped being a compliment to things, it became the thing that everything else complimented.
As soon as I realized that, taking a break was obvious. I am shooting for thirty days, because it is a nice even number, but really, my goal is to go until drinking no longer really occurs to me as something to do in and of itself. I want to be able to have
a beer with dinner, instead of dinner and a six for desert.
I am making myself sound really bad, I realize, but whatever.
This decision comes at a good time for me. Things are about to get really complicated financially, and dropping a grip of money on booze would not help that. Very soon I expect that I will not be able to drive my car for a while, and so I will be primarily be biking to work. Though the prospect of around ten miles a day on a bike does not sound at all appealing on one hand, the flip side is that I am going to be getting more exercise than I think I ever have before. A chance to work off whatever beer my liver couldn't process. By the end of this complicated period, I expect to come out of it in shape and on the right track.
Speaking of on the right track: I live with alcoholics. This also is not a good thing. I want to get the fuck out of here. That is a topic for another post though, to be sure. Certainly it will be longer and more heated than this one. More updates to come on that whole "riding a bike" thing. It's been so long, I hope I didn't forget how.
alcohol
