I have been Alcohol Free for just over six months.

Ultimately that’s the upshot of this entire post. If you don’t have any interest in reading about why I decided to do so or what my experience has been like since then feel free to move on. The anniversary passed right as this whole Cronoavirus business kicked into full gear, and I kinda got to feeling like I did when everyone was talking about how 2016 was such a dumpster fire. I mean, it was, but there was some really cool stuff that happened that year in my life and overall I was really happy but I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be. I kinda feel that way about the whole Alcohol Free thing right now. Like, if I mention it I’m going to be seen as bragging or that if I talk about the fact that I’m happy with the results of my six month experiment people are going to be all “but the world is on fire and you’re judging me for drinking my beer so eat a bag of nails.”

So, yeah. Have I mentioned that I have a lot of rejection issues that I need to work out with my therapist?

Anyway, I made the decision to try seeing what my life was like without alcohol last September after I read This Naked Mind by Annie Grace. There was a lot of stuff in that book that really resonated with me. I don’t know if I’d say it was really eye-opening for the most part, but there were definitely some things I hadn’t considered about alcohol and my relationship with it. Really, the biggest takeaway I have from reading that book and the subsequent research that I’ve done is that the entire concept of alcoholism is, frankly, bullshit. There’s no definitive science behind any one individual being more susceptible to being addicted to alcohol than any other (if people tell you there’s an “alcoholic gene” they are wrong…full stop). There are definitely personality traits that make someone more susceptible to alcohol, but those same traits are positive in other aspects of life. Take me, for example. When I decide I want to devote my time to something I’m all in. I don’t do things by half-measures. Sometimes it takes a lot of convincing to get me there, but if I say to myself that “this thing is something I should do” I do it. For me, that has led to a lot of positive in my life. But it also meant that when I decided I liked scotch I drank it neat and I didn’t stop at just one because as long as I was being responsible about it why would I? The problem is that alcohol is, at the end of the day, a dangerous and addictive drug. Combine that fact with a person who has an “all in” personality like mine, and…well.

There isn’t one thing that really made me re-evaluate my relationship with alcohol. I didn’t have a “rock bottom” moment. I didn’t lose my job or get into a car accident or hurt anyone or really anything dramatic like that. I have a list of things that I wrote down that caused me concern, but for the most part I’m keeping that list to myself. Honestly, one of the biggest things that was pulling me up short was my own vanity. I have a skin condition called Rosacea which is horribly acerbated by drinking. At some point in the last few years I ran into someone who I had not seen in a while who asked if I had been doing another show like Night of the Living Dead because my face was so messed up. Another comment that came my way was from a co-worker who asked if I had been in a car accident and hit my head on the windshield.

Yep. I’m vain enough to say that caused me to start thinking about things. I’ve struggled enough with my appearance because of my weight. I wasn’t real keen with there being yet another thing that I needed to be self-conscious about.

After a friend of mine posted about This Naked Mind on Facebook I added it to my Audible wish list and it sat there for a while. He mentioned it again last year and I decided to give it a read. I don’t want to sound hyperbolic by saying that reading it was life-changing, but it’s six months later and my life is definitely changed. My face has cleared up (although I had to get some laser treatments to reverse some of the damage I had done), I’ve lost 20 pounds or so, I’m sleeping better, I’m more focused, I have more money, and I’ve been able to make much more progress in therapy than I had prior to stopping (helps when you’re not imbibing a substance that adds to your anxiety on a daily basis).

I think the thing that really resonated the most with me about the book, and what helped me to so easily go alcohol free at the time, was the notion of spontaneous sobriety. It’s basically the idea that once your brain decides that something has literally no benefits for you whatsoever it’s easy to walk away from it. That happened with my Father, who was a heavy drinker for most of his life. One day he had An Event that caused him to realize that alcohol wasn’t good for him and he pretty much stopped immediately (no big secret on what The Event was…it was work related. He realized that drinking was impacting his professional life. My Dad took a huge amount of pride in his work, and always drew a line between drinking and working. When he realized that line no longer existed he stopped drinking immediately and never, as far as I’m aware, went back to it). For me, it was the simple act of reading This Naked Mind. I finished the book and went “Ah, yes. I see it now.”

And that’s where I am today.

Those who know about my decision have asked me whether or not I’m going to drink again. Only a Sith deals in absolutes, my friends, and I’d be foolish to think that I will never want to have another drink in my life. What I can say with absolute certainty is that when I think I might want a drink I am immediately reminded that alcohol literally brought nothing positive to my life and, in fact, brought quite a bit of negative. And the desire passes. For now.

As it relates to what’s going on the world right now? I’m really glad that stopped drinking when I did because the amount of money I’d be spending on scotch because I was stuck at home and distracting myself with booze would be…a lot. It’s bad enough I’m eating my way though this, but I was also using Intermittent Fasting prior to Stay At Home Fest 2020 so I’ve at least been able to stave off any weight gain so far. I can’t even imagine what my anxiety levels would be like, because they are pretty much off the chain as it is without alcohol being a factor.