In 2006, after ten years of being neck deep in that world, I gave up on drugs.
There was no dramatic intervention, I wasn’t incarcerated, and I didn’t have a close call overdose that scared me straight.
I just had finally opened my eyes to the damage I had done to myself and my family and it was time to call it quits.
One of the things that made quitting easier was the fact that about two months later, I moved to a different state and no longer had direct access to all of the other users I was friends with anymore.
Throughout my life, I’ve had to periodically (or permanently) step away from behaviors and lifestyles that had run their course.
Most recently, I’ve done this again with alcohol.
Unlike drugs, alcohol has always been a relatively easy vice to put down.
Shortly after my wife and I started dating, and after my father was diagnosed with cancer, I sobered up for four years.
When Marissa and I got married, we were on our honeymoon in Paris and we had a bottle of French champagne in our hotel room.
It was a “when in Rome” moment and my sobriety ended during our honeymoon.
Because I had gone so long without alcohol, my taste had changed and many things I used to be able to consume no longer sat well on me.
Before long, I transitioned into bourbon and remained there as a devoted fan for several years.
Bourbon was also the drink of choice for my wife and I when we ventured down into Kentucky in 2020 for our anniversary and got to learn more about the history of it.
It was that trip in particular that rekindled the parts of our marriage which needed attention and it became the next chapter of our love story.
However, over the last year or so, while my consumption didn’t increase, I did reach points where I felt I was just drinking for the sake of drinking or I’d find myself drinking alone if Marissa wasn’t with me.
And late last year, after spending much of November and December fighting off a variety of illnesses, I finally decided to take a break from drinking altogether.
Not for Dry January, just because.
So, I’m writing this after being dry for about six weeks.
I’m sure I’ll have a drink again because there is some really nice bourbon in our dining room but I have no idea when.
What I’ve found is that the less alcohol I’ve had, the less I’ve wanted or craved it.
And this was part of my inspiration for this week’s post.
I’m not going to ask you to give up drinking.
I’m not going to tell you any scary facts about alcohol.
What I will ask you to do is to take inventory over any area of your life where perhaps more of your identity is tied than you might like.
Maybe you gamble.
Maybe you chronically overeat.
Maybe you look at porn.
Maybe you’re a smoker.
Maybe you have a habit of doom-scrolling several times a day.
Maybe you rely on retail therapy every time life gets difficult.
Sometimes, it feels refreshing to just put the brakes on certain behaviors in your life.
Part of it is knowing that you can.
Part of it is gaining the confidence that you can remove parts of your life that aren’t serving you well.
Part of it is recognizing that you can find other areas of your life to fill the same space but that do so in a way that’s more fulfilling.
It’s not my place to tell you what to go without.
But there may be some places in your life that would improve if you find the strength to do so.
