Some journeys have to be taken alone.
When I made the decision to stop drinking a year ago, it was a decision that had been in the works and the back of my mind for several months, if not years. I’d noticed the thrill and enjoyment I once elicited from alcohol had changed into something darker and more problematic. It wasn’t giving me the same sense of relaxation, and I had promised myself that if that day arrived, I would stop drinking. Circumstances and prompting from Andy and my family on certain nights when my tongue cut too deeply hinted to me that things had shifted. More basic than that, I simply wasn’t enjoying it. I saw its deleterious effects in sluggish mornings and extra weight gained, as well as the drain on my wallet (a proper cocktail averaged about $15 back then ~ no idea how much they are now). And so I gave it up – just like that ~ exactly one year ago.
In some ways, I’d been waiting for an impetus to impel me to do it, but it was less about that and more about my desire to get healthier and to grow into the next phase of my adulthood. When I look at those individuals who enjoy healthy living long and far into their retirements, I often see that they have kicked their healthy living into effect before middle age and then made those healthy habits into a regular part of their lifestyles.
While Andy and others were supportive of me not drinking, this was not something I did for anyone other than myself, and that’s part of why I was able to do it without any great difficulty. It came at the right moment, when I was ready to make the change, to put in the work, and to substitute those lifestyle moments that might otherwise be full of cocktails with things like meditation and therapy and a course on finding happiness. Some people do better making smaller changes slowly over a long period of time; I challenged myself and took this multi-pronged approach because it was what I needed to move forward in my life that winter. It was something I had to prove to myself, to once again recall what it was like to stand alone and do something just for me. It took a lot of work, and a lot of discipline, and I embraced all of it.
It had to begin with letting go of the idea that I was perfect. I had to own up to my mistakes and bad behavior. I had to acknowledge that I was letting myself down, as well as letting the people who meant the most to me down. That meant starting over again in a lot of relationships, and they evolved accordingly. I also learned that, if need be, I could find ways of survival and self-sufficiency that had been dormant for decades, and that sort of reawakening was powerful and precious. With every day that passed with meditation instead of alcohol, a little more of me was transformed and brought into better focus. So many days and nights of drinking had become hazy; I yearned for clarity and honesty and courage without the crutch of a cocktail to blunt my socially anxious edge.
In retrospect, my undiagnosed and underlying social anxiety formed the main proponent for my drinking for years ~ a habit and reliance that I could see possibly becoming an addiction, and I wanted to put a stop to that before I couldn’t. That’s where therapy came into my life, and I was finally ready to work on my most difficult truths without hiding anything, which is why it started to work so well. Along with that, I invested time and effort and a disciplined study schedule into the famous Yale University course ‘The Science of Well-Being‘.
Finally, meditation grounds me every day, creating a safe space of calm and healing and intention, that on its most basic level addresses social anxiety, but on a broader plane also transforms my brain’s basic make-up, pushing out distracting worries and tension while allowing for a blank space of quiet and peace. The world will eventually encroach on this place, that’s just the way the world works for adults, and I’ve seen the importance of consistent and meaningful meditation to counteract such stress and anxiety.
With those things in place, eliminating alcohol was actually a lesser ordeal than most people seemed to think it might be. I never thought it would be a problem, and I leaned into those early months, and that tough winter, with these new habits. By the time spring arrived, and COVID instantly changed all our lives, they had become a natural default, an integral and genuine lifestyle that felt healthy and good. As the world was rocked by the madness of 2020, and most people relied on their vodka and wine and coping crutches, I had already found my comfort cravings, and when stressed I would simply sit for an extra meditation, focus on my deep breathing, and write out any concerns for discussion at my next therapy session.
As easy as the drinking thing was on its surface, it was everything behind it that proved to be the difficult part, and those issues required the intense emotional work and discipline that being home for COVID may have helped coalesce into concrete results. Looking back on the first photo here, taken right before my very first therapy session, I see a glimpse into the fear and terror I was feeling at the start of this journey. It turned out that not drinking was going to be the easiest part of the past year, but I didn’t know that then~ I couldn’t know that ~ and perhaps that not knowing is why it went exactly as it should have gone. In owning up to everything I didn’t know, and acknowledging the many missteps I had made, and the implacable imperfections that make this life so interesting and worthwhile, I became a better person. In the photo below, taken this fall, I recognize the spark that had grown dull over a number of years of drinking and burying everything that bothered me. As the second half of my life ensues, the tools I’ve learned to use in the last year will be what I grasp when things turn difficult. There is little peace to be found unless you’re willing to work for it.
This is all still relatively new to me. I wish I could better put it into words, because on some level these things too easily veer into the hokey and simplistic when expounded upon, and I only hope I’ve come somewhat closer to explaining where my head has been at for the past year. That said, this is only a day, just like any other day and filled with the same hope and opportunity and space as tomorrow will be. So I embrace the day, and beckon you to join me…
