“It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The
trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.” -
George Burns
“Be
wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors ... and miss.” -
Robert Heinlein
Prelude: My last
drink before this challenge – Date: January 31st. I’d say that I
really deserved this one, and thus had to make it special. Beverage of choice:
Single Malt Scotch on the rocks (Jura), a double, pulled from my stock. I
consumed and enjoyed it consciously, in a manner that allows it to linger and
flirt with my senses to the max, as I always do with scotch. It was enjoyed
after coming home from a good and convivial Union facility meeting earlier in
the evening. A private and silent toast was made in recapping my day, to thank
whatever Creator we have for allowing me to witness the rare and spectacular
Blue Moon eclipse earlier that morning, to the much welcomed end of a month
that was quite taxing to me in many ways, for (so far) lasting through exposure
to sick people without getting ill myself, to a new and happier phase of life
for a retired co-worker, and also for a moment to offer some thoughts and
prayers of peace and solace to a soul that passed today, a person for whom we gave
care to, who will now suffer no longer.
I’m probably shocking some people who think they know me
better with my acceptance of a challenge like this. Drinking is certainly a
fact of my life, and although I’m honestly not a lush, nor fall anywhere on the
heavy side of doing it, I still can’t deny either that after any particularly
taxing, stressful, and drama-laden day, that one potential inclination after
coming home and trying to put such days behind me may be to relax with a beer
or cocktail sometimes. Still, it’s not a frequent or automatic first response;
and thankfully, I’m not having too many of days like those anymore where it
could be. The truth is that my drinking has already declined markedly since
November 2014, because after that date I needed to be mindful that
over-imbibing to levels which I could have previously happily tolerated before
that time can now lead to some serious complications. I can still drink daily
if I wanted to, but within a limited range of moderation, of course. I’m not a
barfly, but I do poke my nose into such places the odd time when I do get those
rare urges to crawl out of my shell, and at least pretend to be social.
My overall opinion of exercising temperance is as such - I
don’t look down on people who choose not to drink, nor do I pressure them to
join me whenever I do. Their choice and their reasons, be they medical, or
moral, are their own and respected. If they teetotal, I often do comply with
accepting a non-potent potable as a refreshment in their company. My
non-drinking friends that I have (I have more than just one of them), don’t
judge me harshly just because I do drink every now and then. If it’s not a vice
for which one totally abuses or allows to be an all-encompassing obsession in
one’s life, I don’t regard it as one to totally discount the better parts of a
person’s entire character for. However, I don’t put up with the sanctimony of
others trying to tell me how inherently worthless and sinful I am because I
like the odd nip now and then. I think can recover more easily from drinking
than they probably can from being stupid from whatever puritanical religious or
moral platform they are pontificating from. I’ve witnessed such confrontations before
between casual social drinkers and some hardcore temperance adherents: be they
Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or ultra-purist vegan atheist hipsters, or whoever
else takes a staunch unwavering stance against alcohol. If a person like this
chose to engage with me this way, I would honestly attack back. Not by showing anger,
or being rude, but by being tough on them with simple logic. I have a canned
response against that sort of self-righteous approach. I would ask them which
of the two people they would rather have being the major player in governance
and setting a future course in the history the world: a determined sort who is
an absolute teetotaller vegetarian, who is artistic and who loves animals; or a
steadfast guy who rigorously defends and inspires his people, but also tends to
occasionally overuse alcohol. If they respond with the vehement and absolute
support for the former mentioned teetotaller, I would then ask them why their
right arm isn’t shooting up in front of them with a Nazi salute after they
answered that way, because I’d then indicate, that by their flawed thinking, that
they then would have rather liked to have seen Adolf Hitler emerge victorious
from the Second World War instead of Winston Churchill*. I do confess that I’d
get a sense of schadenfreude as I’d
watch them try to process this factoid, with the gears of cognitive dissonance
grinding in their skulls. However, I’m not so spiteful as to disincline myself
from the challenge of not drinking for a while, although I did get more
selective as to when I would commit to this process than with the other
abstention projects.
Alcohol doesn’t necessarily have to be bad for you. If one
is physically/genetically well-suited enough to tolerate and metabolize it, there
are countless medical reports out there expounding benefits of using it (in
moderation). It was funny - back at my last physical when my blood work results
were being reviewed with me by my physician. After already feeling sheepish
after confessing to my doctor my steady decline in healthier food choices, he
leaned towards me, raising an eyebrow, and said, “You drink beer regularly,
don’t you? I would guess some sort of unfiltered micro-brewed or craft brand?”
Shocked to hear him correctly identify and get that specific about my habit of homebrew
consumption just from my blood sample, I was then noticeably rolling my eyes,
automatically thinking dreadful thoughts of something preachy and prohibitive
coming along for me; another possible loss of one of the few pleasures I have
in life. I was then stuck there trying to think about I was going to dance
around the next questions of how much and how often. Instead, he shocked me
again by just saying, “That’s good! Because there’s no other way to explain
these elevated Vitamin B levels of yours with the kind of diet that you just
told me about.” He said that he wished that other patients had levels that were
so good. I took it as a compliment. He didn’t even warn me to drink less. In
fact, he listed a limit figure off to me of what he deemed passable as moderation, that was actually higher than what I was already consuming; so long as it
didn’t veer too far over into more commercial beer (where yeast nutrients get
lost through filtering and pasteurization) I was OK. Still needing to be
mindful of quantity of course, my choices and pattern of drinking apparently
weren’t harming me now. A big sigh of relieve there.
This doesn’t happen to all non-drinkers of course, but I
have noticed that among those who opt to decline or totally abstain from
alcohol, that many often just more frequently pick out/abuse another socially
acceptable/permissible potentially addictive neuro-chemical substance, from
which they may be finding hard to part from in the same way a heavy habitual
drinker would from alcohol. With the alcohol gone at a dry social event, what
you’ll most likely find instead is just other more common addiction substitute
modals being served, like caffeinated beverages and sugar/carb rich drinks, treats,
and confections. I’m also going to try to not fall into that trap. It was
interesting to study how much of a huge influence our toxins of choice played
as tidal motions and memes for determining our global history, in terms of
colonisations and trade economics, through one documentary series I found1.
Mission: No
alcohol consumption in any form for the entire month of February. This includes
even the so called de-alcoholised wines and beers (that slop, for the illusion
of drinking alcohol, is still overall pretty costly).
Exceptions: None
Reasons, Facts, and Figures:
·
Reason 1 – I’m not quitting drinking based on
some new found moral reason; I do so more out of economy after processing the
actual cost of it all after reviewing 2017’s expenditures from last month’s
abstention challenge. It’s one more of my wasteful expenses that I could do
without for a while. I also do this to establish some sort of historical
baseline for myself, because I honestly don’t know what the actual longest
period of being alcohol-free has been for me at any time during my life as an
independent adult. I know it sure hasn’t been a whole month, or exceeded that. I
don’t consume alcohol problematically, thus it has never been something that I
ever had a conscious need to monitor before. I certainly don’t expect some
medal for going dry for one month, especially with the knowledge that expectant
mothers are relegated to go for at least nine without alcohol, with some
supportive husbands joining them on the wagon for that duration. What I do
expect of myself while I’m being my own experimental guinea pig is to study and
learn how I may and could change by doing so.
·
Reason 2 – Generally, because I remind myself that
February is the worst month of the year for me to endure: when the deepest
trough of the winter blues seems to afflict me almost to my wits’ end. Little
good ever comes of living around here through this month, and for this year, it
is proving to be nothing else different from other past Februarys at the time
that I write this. I usually encounter at least one or two crises to manage
within this wretched cycle of 28 days. Thus, this month doesn’t need to be miserably
accentuated or worsened further through consuming a neuro-chemical depressant.
Drinking around this time of the year obviously doesn’t accord to the overall year’s
mission resolution of somehow trying to be happier.
·
Reason 3 – Because I didn’t want to do this
challenge next month, and not be able to enjoy a couple pints of Guinness for
St. Patrick’s Day in March. Nor would I want to be doing this in May, when the much
beloved and anticipated Top of the Hops event comes to town (a beer, wine and
spirit expo that is a great beginning to my summer), and any part of a hot
summer without some cold beer would seem a little too unnatural for me.
·
Reason 4 – There is a movement going on to try going
dry for the month of February to support cancer research. I could be on board
for that.
·
Reason 5 – Alcohol is the next most toxic
substance that I willingly take into my body. See next month to find out what
the worst is. It would probably do me some good to have a bit of a prolonged
break from it and monitor for some of the potential physical and mental changes
from not imbibing, if any.
·
Reason 6 - Memory Skill Retention/ Improvement –
Given that I live alone (and may possibly die alone), I have no one else around
to pester and rely on to keep track of things and life tasks for myself. It’s
perhaps the other reason I task and trouble myself to write out stuff like this
through blogging: because these entries serve as guideposts in my own life, and
without any one else around to remember any of my life for me, this is all I
have left to show and prove that I once existed, or at least show in all
honesty the character that I once had sometime down the road should I ever
start showing signs of slipping gears cognitively. Being more proactive in
keeping up with brain fitness is a more important priority for me to be mindful
about than it is with most other people who are coupled. I can’t afford to be
declining into cognitive impairment and decay with things like dementia as I
age if I want to still live independently in my senior years. Using brain training apps like
Luminosity™,
puzzles, or playing the odd video game with heavy emphasis for remembering maps
and spatial orientation may be beneficial. Using time like this right now to
make efforts to find the words to chronicle things through writing, and
learning alternate languages is a help also, at least on a lexical/language
level of memory skill retention and intelligence. If alcohol is indeed a great
impairment for all these things, I could stand to learn other ways to be
content with using less of it.
·
Random Fact 1 – The city I inhabit, Saskatoon,
was originally founded in the latter 1800’s as a Methodist temperance colony. I
guess that didn’t work out so well for them, seeing how now the Broadway area,
the original site of the settlement, has one of the bigger concentrations of
bars, taverns, and licensed restaurants in the city.
·
Random Fact 2 – February is Roll up the Rim
Month promotion from Tim Hortons, where my money ordinarily used on liquor can be
gambled with in getting a possible prize by consuming more of their coffee. You
have to hand it to Tim Hortons: they took the shittiest month to be alive in
Canada, and turned it into a coffee lover’s dream, although very much
exploiting the strained hopes of their customers through a contest to sell more
coffee by getting people to wander outside into the frozen misery to get it,
for the odds of winning a big ticket prize that possibly match those of
surviving a nuclear war. I can’t tell if this is brilliant marketing genius, or
a sick and sadistic cruelty. Because that’s what you want around here: to keep
being depressed during this season and be yet even more awake and alert to
reflect upon it <sarcasm>.
·
Random Fact 3 –Initial temperance movements in
the early 1800’s in Britain weren’t even meant to outlaw drinking at all, but
just to control it to limit public intoxication, associated more the evils of
“strong drink”, i.e. distilled alcohol like gin, rum, and whiskey. The initial
movements didn’t even exclude all alcoholic beverages. Non-distilled
fermented drinks, like beer, wine, and cider, weren’t considered to be in the
same league as “strong drink” and were fine, initially. Those were even
promoted more for consumption to dissuade the working man away from using spirits.
However, as the Industrial Revolution took hold, and demanded a more punctual
and efficient workforce, it placed less tolerance for workers being hungover on
any form of alcohol, and temperance was then redefined to mean no alcohol at
all, and this is when social and religious promoters of temperance and
prohibition movements gained some leverage (Party-poopers!). As temperance
movements grew in momentum, the institution of afternoon tea also took hold in
Victorian Britain, to accommodate for their caffeine habit from their other
substitute addictive beverage, along with the addictive substance of sugar to
add to it, as trade for both commodities and mass production to process and refine
them began to flourish in the empire. Their temperance movements also had no
problem introducing things like laudanum (an opiate derivative) to cure people
of alcoholism and delirium tremens, and cocaine was used as a supposed treatment
for liver disease from alcoholism. Addictions don’t really stop; they just change
forms. As easy and as tempting as it would be for me to opt and appreciate the
earlier definition of temperance, I decided to commit to the complete disuse of
all alcohol for this month.
Substitution
Materials, Activities, and Alternate Behaviours:
·
Kvass – A carbonated, grain-based drink to serve
as my substitute for beer; it’s also mildly healthier than pop is. Though
technically a fermented beverage, it is a probiotic elixir made with a dominant
lacto-bacillus culture, not primarily yeast. The homemade stuff is very low in
alcohol (a fraction of a percent by volume), while the commercial stuff has no
alcohol in it at all (however, the trade off is that it’s also then typically sweetened,
sterilized, and filtered of any probiotic benefits). I’ve been using the
latter. My source for it in town is Slavianka, a Ukrainian and Russian food
shop.
·
Milk – Moo juice, beneficial because of the
added boost up of vitamin D: good to have extra of for this time of the year.
·
Clamato juice – My favourite virgin cocktail is
a V-Caesar. Again, as it isn’t a sugary drink, it’s a healthier alternative than
pop or other fruit juices.
·
Lemon Water/ Mint infused Water – Detox
essentials
·
Tisanes – Herbal tea hot drinks, trying not to
swap lessened alcohol with too much increased caffeine intake.
·
Social venues centred around coffeehouses, if
any such things exist here.
·
The Winter Olympics
·
Exercise at home and skiing
·
Scheming and planning for next month’s project
Feedback Mechanisms:
·
The number of emptied liquor bottles shouldn’t
change in my recycling bin between Feb 1st and Feb 28th
·
Weight change (due to over/under consumption of
other things in lieu of booze)
·
Clarity of mind, sleep changes, regained energy,
etc. (see below)
Violations (Stakes
and Penalties): Opening
and consuming from any bottle of liquor during this month means a monetary
fine, a donation equal to the value of the retail price of said bottle of
liquor**** to be made out any one of the many wretchedly despicable and awful
institutions I’d hate to support with any monetary funding: i.e. any of the
several ridiculous ultra right-wing-conservative, anti-science, anti-union, political
movements out there (including this current provincial government). The penalty
amount is tripled if any of that liquor has been acquired through any of the new
privatized (non-SLBS) vendors.
Progress: It
would probably just be easier for me to recap and summarize this effort by
focusing on a week by week progression through the month, mostly confined to
the weekend activity since most of my drinking is confined to Friday through
Sunday anyway, outside of my work hours.
· Feb 1st – Feb 7th: Every day
has had a notice an extreme cold warning from the Weather Network during some
part of each day. Thursday, uneventful . . . and dry. Tuned into TV and texting
Friday evening, felling asleep on my chesterfield (getting old) – no booze then.
Initial INR test done Saturday morning (1.9). Bought some groceries after my
shopping hiatus. Devoted energies to restocking my kitchen, processing a lot of
stuff in a manic fashion. I admit right now that this was no doubt due to too
much coffee in the morning, followed by too much sugary kvass. The combination
of the two seemed to have worked on me physically like a two-stage rocket fuel
system. If I had a beer or two, I may have levelled out; I didn’t yield though.
My heart was pounding, and I was going super-hyper and crazy, barely able to
keep focused. Working like mad in the kitchen to process my pantry supplies was
probably a subconscious effort to clear stuff away for my next month’s
challenge. I crashed hard later, followed by blogging about the previous
month’s challenge. Sunday – still booze free. Monday – Ironically, I resorted
to making beer (no violation can happen since it won’t be ready to consume for
over a month). Tuesday – still good. On Wednesday
the 7th, I was shaken a bit with some emotional things. It was a
complicated sort of paradox to process with a few strange ironies blended in it for even more awkwardness. It was a silly thing now that I look at it clearly: dealing with a sense of loss for something I never really had. It was an odd situation where no one even did anything wrong, and everyone involved was acting
on the best of intentions, and there was no one to blame. I was still very harsh
on myself though. Being a hapless and hopeless loser was about the kindest
thing I could say for myself then. There could have been an excuse to take to a bottle as a reaction to this. But I never did that
before in similar situations, so why do that now? Luckily, I’m not too impulsive by
nature. Those feelings were
short-lived, and maturity prevailed. It was just a thing that was beyond my control, and it was as useless to complain and lament about, as one passing day of bad weather in a week. Nothing really happened to be
ashamed of, and yet nothing resulted to be proud of either. One could argue that avoiding alcohol for
the week maybe was even a help for me in managing to pull my senses together to
reframe things and make peace with the issue. Fate is how you are dealt the hand, but how you play the
cards is choice. I chose the most
honest and amicable way, because the other people involved are ones who I inherently like, and they deserved that much. I at
least tried to walk my way through this with some dignity and maybe making better,
trusting, and hopefully more strengthened friendships. I at least hope that they can understand that I have no resentments at all. I realize now that I didn't lose anything, but actually gained more in other aspects. The lesson itself was
harsh and sobering in its own way, but it really ended better than I could have hoped for. I can’t
speculate if opting to drink would have shifted my perception of the matter for the worse,
even if it was used to just to allow me to somehow escape into sleep. However,
I didn’t break my vow and succumb to that action. When all was said and done,
things worked out for the best for everyone. I then felt quite lucky. I thank the sweet angel who helped
carry me through this time, before and after.
· Feb 8th – Feb 13th:
Thursday – I struggled all day at work trying to keep my mind right from the
insomnia I had from the unrest from the night before, trying not to trip over
my own feet. No drinks taken later when I got home from work, as tempting as it
was to seek that out for some sort of practical sedation. I’m glad I didn’t
because, somehow, a long-lasting migraine was triggered later; I was fearing as
well that I may have been coming down with the flu. It pretty much cancelled
out any appetite for alcohol, plus anything else consumable for that matter.
Though it was on the milder side**, it was bad enough to keep me from sleeping
well, and it left me trying to function through a dulled and blurred state for
many hours. Could alcohol have prevented all that misery to begin with when
used at a strategically placed time? I doubt it. Was avoiding alcohol the
culprit for creating an imbalance that put me in such a state. I doubt that
too. And the migraine did phase into Friday - I finally fell asleep at early
morning (4:00 AM), waking fitfully throughout, arising at 7:30 AM. Things
relaxed head-wise fully at about 12:30 PM. I tried watching some Olympics
coverage, but I couldn’t focus, and I was too still low to be primed by any
interest in it. I invested some time to check out the Wellness Expo at
Prairieland in late afternoon, to do something practical and proactive in
dealing with what I had experienced throughout the evening, night, and day of the
pain I had, plus I attended a seminar of a relevant subject for next month’s
mission. The rest of evening was a boring affair of reading, watching TV, and periodically
needing to rest my eyes. Nothing more potent was consumed than decaf tea. Saturday and Sunday – I stuck to being Mr.
Fix It***. It was rewarding to complete such things and clear them off a list,
but they were not accomplishments to be celebrated with any beer. I joined a
friend for a belated birthday lunch on Saturday after her fitness class. Even
though I did kettlebells and some core work that morning, and skied in the
afternoon, her workout routine makes me feel slothful and puts me to shame.
Since we ate at a health food joint, it would have been senseless to ruin
whatever benefits there were of dining there with alcohol, if having a drink
even crossed my mind that is (which it didn’t). I skied on Sunday, through
harsher conditions than the day previous. As tempting as it could have been to have
a lovely frothy apres-ski pint after that laborious affair, I managed to be
disciplined for all the rest of that day. Monday and Tuesday, both days uneventful
after work – just watching Olympics, skiing, and taking time to install and
configure a Bluetooth system in my car . . . still staying dry.
· Special Note, Feb 14th: Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s
Day – the midpoint of this wretched month. It started to storm with blowing
snow, as well as plummeted in temperature as the workday ended, as if to correctly
punctuate just how awful and abysmal such a day is for me. If Valentine’s Day had
me already feeling beat up and thrown out into a crap-festered gutter in a funk
of depression, the weather change came along to stomp an extra boot down on my
throat to take away anything else of the remains of the day that could have been
pleasurable. It was the same sort of stupid day as it is for me every year, but
seemingly worse with it being even more laden with anomie and isolation as a
single this time around. Except for sending out a few critical texts and
responding to a couple of emails, I just kept my cellphone off for most of that
day; tuning out and ignoring all other media for the day as well. I was just
feeling too low in spirits to want to deal with anyone, and yet at the same
time I didn’t want to be sitting around at home all evening later either;
making things worse by brooding and fueling the feelings of defeatism. I also realized
that it’s all well and fine for me to quit drinking at home, but to really test
myself I needed to leave the beach and wade into shark-filled waters. My last
month’s review had shown that I averaged between 2 or 3 visits to a tavern, or
licensed restaurant per month, and I thought I would keep that frequency now.
Again, fate cards dealt, but how to play them is a choice. I chose not to mope
around at home. I dared myself to go to a licensed establishment, not even
considering if my resolve would remain or crumble after actual exposure to the
presence of liquor, in a leisurely environment. Ideally for that evening, I
learned that there was the Anti-Valentine’s
party at Winston’s Pub: perfect for the equivalent of the grinches of St. Val’s
like me, and other singles who are in simpatico out there, who have their own
reasons for loathing this observance. It was thus a perfectly acceptable place
to enter alone and dine on a later supper, hopefully in peace. If I had any
heart left for this Valentine’s Day, I was probably trying to put it out of its
misery by inducing infarction with the contents on my pub food dinner platter:
a huge prime rib burger with tasty fries, which shouldn’t have been so good given
how greasy they were. However, the only ale I had there was ginger ale, plus a
passable V-Caesar. At the risk of looking a little dorky to those who seen me
there, I remained resolute. It wasn’t really that much fun; certainly not
healthy, but it was just good to be out, even if not for the sake of being sociable,
and it was probably less destructive to my psyche than rotting away idle at
home alone for that evening. There were some augmented pressures during this
stretch of seven days, but I ended this second week without one drop of alcohol
consumed. I then thought about writing, and I asked myself, “How would Anthony
Bourdain (a guy who struggled with addictions/finding sobriety) capture an
evening like this in words?” I then headed on my way home and wrote this point
of entry for the day as you see it here; hearing his narration veering to the crusty,
smart-ass tone in my head as I write this. The only other thing I did to keep
me from being buried completely in the blues was to bring to mind all the women
who came into my life who have made me happy in their own special way. All of
them now are either coupled already, or living far away from me, or otherwise had
just saw fit not to be with me as a partner for other reasons. I extended a
general greeting to all of them on social media. It was the only small glimmer I
had left in me to share that evening to make something that may have looked
like love shine on.
· Feb 15th – Feb 21st:
Thursday- I’m seeing how I’m becoming more mindful of the ways that I’m finding
more alternate things to escape into in lieu of alcohol. They are listed below,
some positives as well as things that were negative over-compensations: like playing
video games for an obscenely long time once or twice. Another of the downsides
is that I’m ashamed to say that I find myself doing is wasting more time on being
entertained by more banal and frivolous things on social media and television than
I should . . . well . . . more than I already usual do. It’s not stuff I’m
learning much from for my betterment; I sense another future mission in the
making. Instead I turned to Pinterest to be inspired and to find motivators for
my next challenges and projects. I don’t want to draw out and dwell on the
other trivialities of this week, except that momentum was being kept where I
remained on the wagon. The truth is that throughout this month, drinking didn’t even consciously enter my mind for most of it. I didn’t crave it, nor did I look around to score the stuff on my odd weekday evening or the weekend,
which is my usual frequency and pattern of consumption for it. It was a good validation to prove to
myself that I have no real addiction to it. The only time I consciously dwell
on the subject is when I come and sit down here to write about my activity for
the weeks of this month in a piecemeal fashion. Even then, there is no urge to
get up and grab any afterward. This weekend’s events included touring a giant
indoor Flea Market near where I live. More skiing was done despite the wretched
wind chill. After reflecting on the misery of Valentine’s Day, there followed the
ultimate, bordering-on-insanity, writing exercise: crafting a good online
dating profile for myself. I found that especially taxing in that I had to pull
out all the stops to present myself as a suave, silver-tongued devil to
compensate for me outwardly looking like some sort of rough-around-the-edges, silver-haired, goofball.
As tempting as it was to have help from Comrade Vodka for some extra creative
writing prowess, and to maybe make myself feel sexy somehow with some liquid
confidence for that whole mess, there was none taken. Midway through that process
though, I still felt hapless and hopeless, feeling nothing better coming from
me to apply to it - project terminated. I had a tougher Wednesday: dealing with a couple urgencies, and trying with no success later
in the day to get either tickets or company for an upcoming weekend Rush game. To
be fair, I didn’t give anyone enough notice; which was just as well, because I
was getting sick. But then, as if manifesting magically and mysteriously,
some interesting things started to develop (see next point). Three of four
weeks accomplished in staying dry.
· Feb 22nd – Feb 28th: The
physical changes are becoming noticeable now. I don’t know if it’s from three
weeks of the detoxifying effects of the lemon infused water (later to include
garlic to fight infection holistically), or if my own liver was indeed becoming
healthier, regenerating, and starting to reset its function better hormonally
and metabolically from the disuse of alcohol, but I’ve been having wicked surges
and spells of voracious hunger midway through the waking hours of my remaining
days of this month’s challenge. I’ll spare the more vivid details, but after
some abdominal pain, there was evidence of my body ridding itself of old gall
stones. A throat infection was afflicting me since Tuesday evening. It was a
motivator to keep me from drinking actually: knowing that it would probably not
only just be painful, but also dehydrating my throat further and making things
worse when I don’t have much for other remedies available for me to use. Physically
(before getting ill), I seemed to have a little more energy, but that may be
due to a boost in metabolism from more exercise. Mentally, I don’t feel much
different; still the same problems with sleeplessness at night, or wasteful
times when nap attacks strike me in mid-afternoon which then corrupt my nightly
sleep hygiene later. My throat worsened throughout Thursday and Friday. On Saturday,
I forced myself into at least work out indoors if skiing wasn’t feasible with
the throat issue, and I used the steam room for a while afterward hoping it would
cook this damn bug out of me. I hopefully got rid of what I prayed would be the
last of that affliction. I could have just planted myself at home for the rest
of Saturday, stewing in my failure for finding company for the game that night,
but again I fought this brooding-in-isolation instinct, like I did for
Valentine’s Day. I was receptive to the gentle persuasion and coaxing of
someone to meet up with her before she headed out on her own holiday. Her
approach to me was through that very thing that I was initially going to
abandon out a sense of futility. I dared myself to go, and got myself collected
into the group she was in. An uncharacteristic maneuver for shy little me. She
and her company were doing rounds of beer and shots while I remained steadfast
on just having some ginger ale and feasting on cough drops. As tempting as it
was to join them, I found an even better reason not to mess up whatever healing
was happening. I managed to lose my creepy, raspy, virus-afflicted voice just
in the nick of time. Throughout that evening, I ended up not being really happy
at all . . . I would say rather that I ended up being quite delightfully overjoyed! Sunday – boozeless, followed by the sweetest Monday
evening I’ve ever had in a long while, if ever (still no drinking). Tuesday – no
booze. I hit the finish line on Wednesday, Feb 28th and went even
beyond without touching a drop of any alcohol, as I wrap up writing this on
March 1st . . . Mission accomplished!
Rewards and Final
Words: Instead of viewing consuming alcohol as a problem (which it isn’t on
an addiction perspective for me), the real premise of this exercise perhaps was
to see what sorts of problematic things were/are entering my life that spark
and trigger me to want to drink for relief. I think I have a clearer picture of
what those are now. They tend to be people centred/related stressors: dealing
with the (potential) loss of whatever or whoever is the precious good in this
world for me, if I had to gauge things honestly. Thankfully, I’m not driven to
drink by anger. Being introverted as I am most times, I really see now that if
I am ever reliant on alcohol for any one thing it’s to draw me out of that
shell, and sometimes that doesn’t even do the trick. Mostly though, I drink to
relax, and to dare myself to be more disinhibited to find more humour in things
than to really escape from them. After all, it is a big sad scary world out
there sometimes. I’m also discovering that brooding for me can incite using
alcohol; not usually the other way around. Upon reviewing a broader picture of
life, I reconciled with another truth: that it has occurred at times that I’ve
just buckled and drank out of being plain old lonely and feeling like a rejected
misfit. Of my reasons for drinking, it’s the rarer occurring one, but nevertheless,
it has come to pass at times that way. Upon reflection, if I’ve ever approached
inebriation at times long before this exercise, it thankfully was never inching
towards the side of being mean, vulgar, boorish, angry, or aggressive. These
are exactly the kinds of drunken behaviours I despise seeing in other people. Sure,
there are things I did during this shift to sobriety during the month that made
me feel and perhaps even appear a little crazy (including writing all this as a
summary as an example), but all in all in the bigger picture, that’s not even a
fraction as bad as abusing a substance to give oneself a license and an excuse to
be mean, vulgar, and abusive, as some people I know/knew have done. The rewards
for me giving up drinking for a while are as such:
·
One reward for this period of temperance was
saving the money I could have used on liquor to instead acquire myself a new
passport. To welcome and invite a chance for new experiences abroad. It seemed like a prudent measure to do. I’m more compelled than
ever to fly away from this place. It’s a bittersweet move though. I’ll have
this thing to permit me some freedom to travel, but as things like Valentine’s
Day painfully drove home, there’s no one for me to travel with. Everyone I know
is coupled, or can’t afford to travel, or wouldn’t be interested in most of the places I would opt to go to
on my travel wish list. *****
·
Not wasting away all my time being immersed in
dejected self-loathing/self-pity for something like Valentine’s Day. Perhaps staying away from
alcohol helped. I broke away from the usual annual tradition of moping and
brooding around home. I also didn’t yield to doing something ridiculous for the
sake of quelling loneliness. Drawing back from the past at a time when I was in
a role of being a mediator/counsellor to victims, it amazes me now what kind of
nonsensical abuse and torment (escalating at times to violence) people will
surrender to in their domestic and intimate affairs, all in the name of being
less lonely. Even though I was amongst an indifferent crowd, still alone that
evening, I made better use of the alone time being in sober solitude doing some
people watching.
·
The crisis level for this month, compared to
other past Februarys, has been relatively low thankfully. Being more
proactively focused on maintaining some soundness of mind through substance
avoidance may have contributed; or maybe I was just finally lucky for a change
in that regard.
·
I exercised more, getting a good sweat going to
detox me, and a lot of fresh air to rejuvenate me and re-condition my lungs, forcing
myself to do so even on the harsher days outside. I finally made it to doing 10
km skiing. Something impossible for me even just a month ago.
·
Writing more, improving some skill in it; by taking
this piecemeal approach to it, by exploiting kaizen
(progressive shifts in improvement through small changes), it was an awakening for
me in varying my style. The downside may be that I’ve been perhaps overly
candid with the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly truth of it all. I won’t
learn anything though if I’m not honest with myself. Communication, it seems,
is always a skill I need to improve on. I’ll say now that writing with a
clearer, soberer, mind can lead one to get nailed with some harder truths
about one's personal reality. However, it will also give a better sense on how
to deal with them.
·
I tried to renew some old friendships.
·
I lost some weight through the month (2.72 kg/6.00 lbs).
·
I became a little more mindful of what sort of private
hell people with bona fide hardcore addictions must go through, especially when
that said particular addiction isn’t something seedy and hidden in the back
alleys of life, but right there out in front of that person at any public
establishment, out in the open and ready to tempt such people.
·
The complete success in this means no penalties,
thus no punishments of financing causes I don’t support, respect, or believe
in.
Greatest Triumph: finding that one good final Saturday of February,
where the course of the lonely hell of this month ended and actually yielded to
something good, and hopefully will progress into something even better. If it
was due to me following the strange winding trail of cause and effect throughout
this challenge, so be it, and I’ll just be grateful for it. It didn’t need to
be as crazy as a mad-cap adventure.
It just involved being honest, and open, and taming and pushing past the
impulse to brood, (which is hard to do when you have the mentality and
predilection of a writer) and someone who could appreciate all that. I hope she
will be as grateful as I am for this too.
I also realize that this trial of temperance actually isn’t
going to stop 100% immediately after Feb 28th, since there are
stipulations for my next challenge in March which necessarily include disuse of
most alcohol, or at least an adjusted level of moderation than from what was
recently normal for me. If I had to rate the difficulty of this challenge
between 1 and 10, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most challenging in
difficulty, I would honestly rate it as between a 2 and a 3. Doing some
liver-cleaning hopefully will give me an advantage to deal with what is coming
to task in March. I’m not going to preach temperance, but I would endorse
anyone who would want to give it a try for a prolonged while. If gaining some
clearer insight into some matters is all you’d get from it, that’s more than
worth it. I might make this a tradition for every February now.
The greater part of February was still characteristically
harsh on my wits. If I could address this month anthropomorphically, like it
was the dirty old malicious bastard that it always has been to me, I would tell
February that it’s about bloody time that I’ve been given some reprieve from
the ordinary round of nastiness. The last few days of it were a small step
towards redeeming itself. I at least leave this month better than I entered it.
It took patience and calm to overcome moments of obvious depression, and the
will to be empathetic, forgiving, and bidding peace to not only others, but to myself
as well. Alcohol itself, or rather the lack of it, didn’t do much to change my
innate character. Life was just as challenging for me without it. I am thankful that the task wasn’t too hard to commit to. However, given
next month’s challenge, and the outrageous amount of prep and planning for it,
I don’t think it will come anywhere close to being as easy as it was for this
month . . .
Bibliography and Resources
1.
Addicted
to Pleasure – (BBC production) seen on Netflix, hosted by Brian Cox
*- “I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has
taken from me.” - Winston Churchill
**- Although it is hard to differentiate what is “milder” in
severity with such a thing. It’s like saying that getting hit by a bus is relatively
milder in severity than getting hit by a train.
***- Using some hacks to fix and refurbish a broken office
chair, rewiring my entertainment centre, editing and reprogramming variables in
the script code of a spreadsheet.
****- If it’s a beer, then the fine is the SLBS retail price
of a 12 pack of that same or corresponding brand.
*****- This was written prior to Feb 24th ; I
will hope that the dynamic will change now where I’d be able to retract this.
We’ll see.
