Some time today or yesterday or tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the last time I had a drink.
It was Memorial Day weekend. Anita was out of town. I’d gone
to a concert and a baseball game that weekend, but I was relaxing at home, and
I went to the fridge at about quarter after midnight for just one more before I
went to bed for the night because I had to work the next day.
And then the next weekend I didn’t buy any more beer and
then the next weekend and the weekend after next to a point where if I did buy
some it would have made Anita sad, so I decided against it. Of course, it was
more than that. I had a long history of bad, self-destructive decisions I made
while drinking and it isn’t good for your health even if you say to yourself, you
can moderate it. And I couldn’t really moderate it. Five years ago, I had been
drinking more to sooth work stress and political stress and it was just time to
stop.
I liked being drunk though and sometimes I still miss it in
a way I don’t miss smoking (even though there is still the occasional craving
for a cigarette fifteen years out). The difference is that I kept smoking because
not smoking made me feel bad, but I liked drinking, so I drank to feel good –
it helped level out the anxiety. Thankfully, I wasn’t at the point of physical
dependence on alcohol.
I don’t miss the hangovers though – the dehydration and feelings
of dread as your brain chemistry reset or the piecing together of the night
before to make sure you didn’t do or say anything the night before.
Quitting drinking was surprisingly easy for me in terms of physical
cravings. I wasn’t expecting that based on how hard it was for me to quit
smoking. The hard part was making the decision to quit and keeping that
decision every day. It was easy because it was something I wanted to do, and I
had people around me that supported me.
You have those people too. Even if you have those cravings that
are so bad you can feel it in your teeth, you are surrounded by people who care
about you and want to see you make the healthy choices for your best self.