Five Years Sober

 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.

Here’s the difference

 

George Floyd never signed up.

George didn’t want to serve

For county or college tuition

He wanted to live his life

Like those kids who lost their lives

Cut down in their prime

Like George Floyd

Maybe they cried for their mothers

Like George Floyd

But Big George didn’t sign on the dotted line

There were no benefits, no VA

George was born into a warzone

Born in America, covered in Black Skin

Read Some More Books

 

The Revenge of the Real: Politics for a Post-Pandemic World

Benjamin Bratton

 

I really like the Verso Book Club, which is where I got this from. They send out books every month and it forces me to read more than I normally would and outside of my normal interests.

 

This book was an interesting short little thing, arguing in my reading for a large conception of the social – against the atomized person and thinking of us all as part of a system. I think it works but my main critique is that it exits in a weird middle ground. Part of me wanted to see it expanded. Then there’s another part that wanted it tightened up. For example, there’s a whole chapter against Giorgio Agamben. When I was reading it, I was like “Why is there a whole chapter about this guy I’ve never heard about?”. And it seems like the whole issue was on me, since reading this book I have seen at least a dozen references to Agamben. Again, thanks to the Verso Book club for expanding my theoretical horizons.

 

East of Eden

 

John Steinbeck

 

I’ve been on a bit of a Steinbeck kick since the pandemic started. I reread Grapes of Wrath at the beginning because I was worried about the economy crashing. In that reading I found a much better book than what I remembered from being forced to read it as a high school student.

 

Grapes of Wrath may be his most famous book, if because it is the bigger book of his that gets pushed by those high school students. I think that is an oversight, as East of Eden is the better book, I think. I guess that it doesn’t get taught because a good part of it centers on a house of ill repute.

 

But also – it does take a while to get going. Steinbeck here is writing a broad and epic sweep and must build the setting and the characters and then put them together. He does it so well though. There are places where he creates a character with such depth and complexity, and he does it in just a paragraph or two. It’s something that you can see and point out how well he does it but impossible to really saw just why it works. It’s just genius at work.

 

He also, in these pages, creates one of the most hate-able female characters ever put to the page. He just captures this psychopathy so well you must wonder who in Steinbeck’s biography he modeled from to create this character. Who hurt you, John?

 

So, this book just builds, grows, and has an incredible momentum right up until the end, an end that just gob smacks you. In my opinion it is one of the top dozen or so novels I have read. It’s amazing and you should read it.