Craft Brew Sobriety

I touched base with a friend that I hadn’t spoken, er… emailed with in two years. A lot has changed for us in that time. Both is us have lost our fathers to cancer. Both have been working through addiction and mental health issues, and we’ve also been processing what we did during our time in the Marines. Even 20-ish years after the fact, we’re still wrestling and working to understand what we did and what it meant (did) to us and what the global implications might be.

Of course, it’s not so much an assumption that any of our individual actions were of global significance—neither of our egos are that big. Rather, it’s coming to grips with the roles that we played in the U.S.’s terrible, irresponsible, and inhumane actions taken in the name of protecting the rich, made richer with the spoils of conflict, under the lying banner of protecting freedom. On a nearly daily basis, I struggle with having been a cog in that machine. While I committed no war crimes, did not directly kill or injure anyone, I was a key player as a support team member. In addition to helping patrols violently round up innocent people, taking notebooks purported to be terrorist plots (they were chemistry, physics, and calculus notes and homework), and reading love poems believed to be plots to take down the Americans.

What does all that have to do with getting sober? Well, for one, with sobriety, I’m able to look at this history with clear eyes. Admittedly, there is some shading from history and nostalgia, but the haze of alcohol wrecks my ability to actually sit with that pain and struggle. Clarity serves to surface the pain, but my sober mind is the thing that keeps me from falling off the edge of the world. I do end up feeling wrecked for several hours after really contemplating, if not days, but in the end, there’s a deeper sense of understanding.

At the end of the day yesterday, I spent awhile talking to my partner about our conversation. As we met each other while I was in the Marines, they also know my friend and my friend’s partner. We had a really nice discussion, even if some of it was unpleasant. Perhaps the worst part was that my partner, in hearing the struggles that my friend has been going through, felt very worried that I’d be heading along the same path, as much of our stories overlap. While I can’t say it won’t happen, seeing their recovery gives me a lot of hope. Further more, they were very encouraging and, as I’ve read, my friend pointed out that our discussion was as helpful for them as it was for me. I guess my point is that while I can’t guarantee it won’t get worse, that conversation with my strongest connection to my time in the service showed that there’s hope and perhaps more importantly, I’m not alone.

You’re not alone. We’re not alone.

If you’re anything like me, you do feel alone. Much of your drinking life was your social network and when you cut out drinking, those friends faded away, leaving a big gap. I’ve made a mistake in not working to fill that gap in and have ended up putting all that weight of space on my family. My phone call reminded me that I’ve really been lacking in building a friend network outside of work and bars/breweries/home brew clubs. Even though I am working to push very hard against the idea that we must hide our personal and mental struggles at work, it’s a long living pattern to break and even when it’s acceptable to talk more openly and honestly about our those personal aspects of our lives that inevitably affect our work routines, I still struggle to believe that work is the appropriate place to seek support. Instead, I’ve learned that I do need to be more intentional in seeking out friendships on my own, rather than stumbling into them (though serendipitous friends are always welcome!) or relying on my partner to make the friends first. But I do need an action plan.

How does one go about making new friends as an adult, outside of work? I don’t really know; but that lack of knowledge isn’t going to kill my curiosity. I’m going to be spending the next several weeks seeking out answers for that “how?” question. I hope you’re also on your way to building a new network or deepening those connections you already have. If you’re like me, in the early stages of this, let’s work together to do this. You’re not alone. We’re not alone. We may not know each other, but I know your life is worth living and that you’re worthy of love and caring, even if you feel the opposite. I know that because if I’m still here in spite of the terrible things I’ve done to strangers and friends and family, there’s a path to healing for everyone. If people like Viktor Frankl can survive human-originated atrocities and come out finding hope and reason in life, so can we. Let’s all work to seek out those that truly care for us and dedicate ourselves to sharing that same love and care for others. And for ourselves. It will get better. It has to get better. But we can only get through it by continuing to live, whether it’s a life of active action or hiding under the sheets for a day, staying here on earth is the only way to keep going.

I wish you all the best.

While it feels like there’s no quick answer to the titular question, it probably is as simple as: everywhere but here. By “here”, I don’t mean this blog, though that is true. No, I mean here as in the here and now.

Although I’ve suspected it for a long time and often made a joke about it, I do genuinely think I’ve been self-medicating through drinking. I started drinking at a low point in my life where it felt like there was no escape or relief or reason to keep living. Drinking served me by occupying and incapacitating myself during those quiet times when my brain would start to scream and scheme of how to end things. When talking to my therapist, I often talked about how drinking stopped my thinking about the future and the past. All the troubles were obliterated. Temporarily. Of course, I sold myself the idea that drinking quieted the voices. But since the voices only showed up at those dark quiet times, I think drinking more served the function of closing down my vision and filling my head with warm static. Static that meant nothing and everything. It was the overwhelming nothing.

Self-medicating… that’s an idea, eh? On one hand, the way I approached drinking was in some fashion (especially in my later years) a scientific approach to determine the fastest route to shutting down the racing mind, filled with terminal thoughts or overwhelming pressure to fix whatever might be going wrong in my life or others’ lives. The problem is that the prescribing physician is getting increasingly tipsy while continuing to increase the dose.

Why do I mention self-medication and absence from the present? In part, it’s because, in my sobriety, I’ve had to confront the underlying monsters/demons/conditions from which I hid in my fortress of bottles, cans, and my brew kettle and kegs. Plus, although I know I’ve written and thought and read about this a lot, it bears repeating: drinking does not solve problems for me and stopping drinking cannot fix problems that drinking did not cause. Chiefly, over the course of these last 18-ish straight months and the numerous stops and starts that preceded them, I’ve had to find ways to cope with the onslaught that is 20-ish years of suppressed mental health conditions and personal matters that really are in need of addressing.

The initial stages of coping involved therapy. Then I added medication to scaffold my daily life. I got back to exercising more regularly and just feeling what it felt like to live life in full. And it wasn’t all great. While there have been some great times, the lack of mediation makes the lower times almost too much to bear. Suicidal ideation shows up more frequently now and can take days before it goes away. I feel like I am out of control, even though I am able to hold it together on a daily basis.

Somewhere around 3 or 4 months of not drinking, a new challenge showed up: my physical health started going down hill. For no real apparent reason, I dropped 50 pounds and would get stomach pains every night after dinner. My toes turned red, inflamed, and tender, so I had to stop running. I was referred to a cardiologist (who temporarily diagnosed me with heart failure), a rheumatologist (who found nothing), a gastroenterologist (same), a podiatrist (wanted to cut my toe tendons), and went through goodness knows how many blood tests. All inconclusive. At the same time, my sleep quality went through the floor and my lower back pain began to flare up again.

I’m still dealing with a number of the above conditions. Except heart failure. After a stress test and echocardiogram, I was cleared from that. Thankfully it was before I started another medication! I’ve now switched to a more holistic doctor and we are continuing to work on finding the connections between my various conditions and, maybe, my mental health as the root cause. As I’ve continued to work with my therapist, psychologist, primary care doctor, and specialists, it seems increasingly likely that all this stuff is related.

Though I haven’t finished any of them yet, I have been reading a couple of books that talk about the mind-body connection. These are texts written by medical professionals with long histories in practice, and that means a lot to me, as they’re based in real science rather than subjective belief. From what I have read, it seems incredibly likely that my issues are connected. So, I’m giving it time, but as I keep working to heal my mind and soul, I’m hoping to also start seeing some improvements in my physical condition.

Let’s go back to self-medication and presence for a bit. This is the challenging part for me to write. Awhile back, during a time when I was at my absolute lowest point I’d been, I decided to give cannabis a try. I’d tried it before while drinking as well as several types of CBD but neither did much for me when compared to drinking. I experimented with it quite a ways back and really, it felt just like being drunk to me. So, I’d put that on the back shelf for awhile. Then, I started to see this idea of California-sober showing up. My understanding was that the focus was to stop drinking (and maybe stop other drugs) but still use cannabis as a sort of harm reduction approach. In hindsight, for me, this is more of the self-prescriptive behavior that got me into trouble with alcohol. However, I do notice quite a bit of difference between THC and alcohol. Aside from the physical aftermath being lessened relative to booze, it’s also easier for me to moderate and just enjoy the place I’m at in a given moment.

But am I present? I don’t quite know. That’s probably a big fat, “NO!” for an answer, but it definitely is keeping me from ending my life. The same cannot be said of the medications I’m on. Mixing and matching between these drugs is not ideal, but as I’ve seen the side effects while taking these medications, I’m taking the withdrawal symptoms very seriously and will be working with my medical team to taper them off in the next few months. As with my new doctor and our quest to figure out what’s going on with me, I’m waiting, taking my time and hoping for the best.

Speaking of the doctor (and the rest of my medical support team, and my family): I’ve not been forthcoming with my use. On one hand, I’m inclined to keep it that way. On the other hand, it feels like that’s my addiction talking… secrets were always my drinking habit’s best friend. As is lying. “Do you use any drugs for pleasure, nicotine, alcohol, cannabis?” asks the doctor. “Of course not!” responds the self-deluded self-meditator. Yet, it’s not spinning out of control like my drinking does. Better yet, I really only use it because I have it easily accessible (I know, that’s another sign that this might be compulsive…) and I can easily go without if needed for as long as I need. The thought of stopping doesn’t seem impossible as the thought of never drinking again always did. Also, I’m not feeling a sense of revulsion when I’m able to take an edible or something of the sort. That dread, or the lack of fun/joy, that accompanied my later years of drinking was a big sign to me that things weren’t going in my favor. Who knows, maybe that’ll change.

This all isn’t to recommend this to people struggling to quit drinking. It’s quite the opposite. I have a list of things I should have done instead, but for a wide range of reasons, this is where I am. Now. At the present. More directly, if you were to ask me for advice about how to quit, my answer would be: plan to take it small and keep taking it small. A minute at a time. Then 5 minutes. Then half an hour and after that a full hour. Before long you’re at a day. But you don’t need to count that number obsessively or to compare it to anyone else’s number: this is your journey. Each time the chance to drink presents itself, choose not to drink. Just the first one. Then keep moving. Also, find support. That will look different for everyone. Maybe it’ll be somewhere like r/stopdrinking on Reddit, or at your local AA gathering, or your therapist, or church/monastery/temple/synagogue/mosque/gathering hall. Wherever you can take refuge, find support there. I also find that supporting others through their hard times builds me up for my own hard times. In a few cases, hearing what others are going through has illuminated a way forward with my own issues. It’s a win win.

There is more to write about, more to share with you, Reader. But for now, I’m going to leave it here. I hope this finds you in good health and I look forward to seeing you around again sometime in the future.

It feels like I just restarted this blogging effort. More than a feeling, I guess. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed it’s been tough to carve out time in my schedule to meet my self-imposed weekly editorial schedule and have an article ready to go by Monday. Thus, as I re-work my life to better support a sober lifestyle, I’m seeking areas where I can remove stress; with stress being a major reason that I drank like I did.

While I really do enjoy sitting down and composing my thoughts and then sharing them here, it’s just too much at this time. I’ll be spending the next few weeks taking a sort of inventory of the areas in my life where I want to put my energy and carrying on from there. One area I can say I want to invest in for certain is self-care. That doesn’t mean just pampering and “me time”. Instead, at this time it’s more of a triage effort to find the parts of my being that are most in need of rest and healing and focusing on those. 

If you’ve read through my past couple of posts, thank you. I look forward to connecting again in the near future. In the meantime time, I encourage you to think of ways you can improve your self care routine. Is it to carve out a few minutes in the morning or evening for some undisturbed quiet? Focusing on reading a new book? Setting and adhering to an exercise routine? I guess that sounds a little like “me time”, but once on r/stopdrinking, someone once posted something about burning oneself in order to keep others warm. In some ways I think that’s how I’ve burned out. So, some me time will allow healing so that we can continue to support others in a more healthy and balanced manner. Also, I have goals of improving on all those activities as I learn to live life without blinders.

Good luck out there!

Let’s get into a bit more of the “why” behind this blog. A natural place for me to start is the days before I started drinking and for me, this is before I was 21. I was a happy kid and don’t recall any hardships in my life that would lead me to drinking as a means of escaping traumatic events. Alcohol didn’t loom large in my life, because there weren’t people in my family that I had any awareness of having alcohol issues. The only concrete evidence of drinking that I can recall clearly affecting me personally was a night when one of my parents was reading in the living room. I was 8 or so and was thirsty, so I picked up the nearest glass which had a clear liquid in it and since it was so hot outside, the condensation on the outside of the glass was all the more attractive. However, that was not water, it was white wine. I was disgusted by the surprising taste. It was awful and since it wasn’t enough to feel the effects that come with alcohol, I walked away completely puzzled as to why someone would want to drink that.

In middle school, I remember a friend who lived next door having to come spend the night with us because his dad came home very drunk and violent. I actually slept through it, so I only knew what my parents told me and what my friend shared with me the next day. It was weird and didn’t feel real. In high school there were definitely parties with drinking as well as drugs–though I wasn’t invited to too many that I recall. The same is true for the start of my college career. Whether it was walking through frat row or just in the dorms, there was alcohol available. In part because of my Christian identity but also because of a fear of getting in trouble (with the police, school, parents, etc.), I never indulged. I also felt pretty strongly that if I enjoyed life (which I did), drinking would only cause me to have times that I’d forget. My motto was “Why would I go to parties and drink when I wouldn’t remember if I had a good time?” There was even a time where after a shift ended at the pizza place I worked, at 3:00 AM or so, there was a poker night at the restaurant. I was invited to that and I think I stuck around for a bit, but I turned down the beer. It just wasn’t interesting to me.

After two years at my first university, I failed out. Although I like to call it “reaching a mutual agreement between the school and me that I wasn’t ready for college”, that’s really too generous and places some degree of blame on the school. It’s all on me. The reality of it was that I wasn’t mature enough and didn’t have the time management skills that are necessary to make it through a higher education successfully. Interestingly, this same set of skills is required to make it through adult life as well! Yet, I didn’t drink. Although I was very disappointed in myself, I started to plan ways to “make it right” and sought a job after I moved home, looked into careers and continuing my education, and, fatefully, started talking to military recruiters. After I’d made up my mind to enlist, while I was waiting to ship off to boot camp, I delivered pizzas for a nearby chain and picked up some nights in the kitchen as well. It was a good time, but I was surrounded by people that were very much into partying, drinking, and drugs. Again, although I was invited, I just never found the idea of partaking to be appealing. So, it wasn’t even that I resisted peer pressure, I just said no thank you.

Not drinking was a pretty solid way to set myself up for shipping to boot camp. For 12 weeks, it was guaranteed that I wouldn’t be able to drink or smoke, so by entering service without those habits, I was in a better place than many of my fellow recruits. Plus, although I had a lot of room to improve my physical fitness, I wasn’t any further behind the curve because of smoking or drinking. Graduating boot camp and then heading off to infantry training and intel school, I continued to stay away from booze. I was also still under 21 and living in fear of breaking the law.

All that changed when I turned 21. Well, it wasn’t so much because I turned 21, but because of events around that time. In short, not long after I’d showed up for my first permanent duty station, my parents had discovered that I’d continued to have a relationship with a person that they didn’t think was healthy for me. On one hand, I was old enough to make that poor decision on my own, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the other hand: that I was lying about it. The lying was the problem.

Combining that feeling of disappointment from being caught in a lie with the overwhelming confusion over what I’d just done to my life by enlisting was a recipe for trouble. For a few days after I checked into that first duty station, I’d spend my off time lying in my room with the lights off, pondering how to become a conscientious objector and get out of the military or how to end my life. It was a very dark time. Not too long after that, though, a friend from intel school stopped by and we worked it out so that I could move in with them. That was a very positive change. We’d spent quite a bit of time hanging out on the East Coast and in spite of different experiences growing up, there was enough in common that we really hit it off. To this day, they’re still one of my best friends.

All that to say, it was a surprise to them when we were walking to the store to grab some snacks and I turned and said, “I think I want to get drunk.” They didn’t understand what I’d just said. Nothing in their knowledge of me, my history, or personality aligned with that. Yet, I’d recently turned 21, so my first inhibition was removed. Combined with a desire to escape from my current dark place, it was too tempting to resist. We picked up a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and that night we kicked off what would be a long relationship between alcohol and me. There are quite a few details that figure into that night and the future months, but there’s one that stands out: alcohol made me feel nothing. “Nothing” is a bit much, though. It was just that everything felt fuzzy and nice. Warm, even. My friends’ marker for a buzz was that their lips would feel numb. I don’t know that I ever felt that but I definitely felt warmth all over my body. I was a little woozy, but happy. It was just nice—I was just gone.

Over the course of the next several months, I continued to explore the world of alcohol, looking up drink recipes, spending time walking around the PX in search of something new and exciting to drink, going to bars, and spending way too much money on nights out. From the start, though, drinking was a daily activity. I don’t think there were very many nights that passed that didn’t involve me drinking some amount. Weekends were heavy, of course, but weekdays were drinking days as well. It didn’t matter if we had a formation run the next day, we went hard on getting drunk. I think that’s partly just what we thought was expected of the military culture: you work hard and you play harder. There were a few times where I was worried about how I felt like I had to drink each night, but without fail, I’d end up drinking again. I distinctly recall more than one occasion of sitting in front of my computer, firing up some video games, and thinking about how nice it was back in the day when I didn’t feel I needed anything like getting drunk to relax. Yet, I didn’t stop.

At this point, I’d only been drinking for a year or so, and I was already asking if this was okay. But I kept plowing ahead. There’s more to cover and I’ll dig into that here soon, with a few moments of pause on particular events through my drinking life. I’m curious, though: Have you spent time reflecting on how you got started drinking? Did it just happen socially or were the events that made you feel like you almost had to drink? As I’ve found a lot of value in these types of reflections, I recommend you do the same. You might not end up with a revelation—I certainly didn’t right away—but it might be instructive in something that you’ve taken for granted.

Next week I’m going to jump ahead in time, closer to the present, and talk about my journey through the wonderful world of “quit-lit”. There are a few key books I’ve read that really sparked a difference in my mind and I’m looking forward to sharing those with you.

For this week’s post, I’d started writing “My Drinking Story”, to recap how I got here. Turns out it’s a bigger story than I’d planned, so I’ll pick it up at a later date. Also, with everything I’ve been going through over the past few weeks, It feels more appropriate to revisit one of the lessons I’ve run into over the last year: Stopping drinking doesn’t fix anything on its own. Also, practicing kindness to one’s self can be as much of a process as stopping drinking.

Some of us who stop drinking may be fortunate enough to not have to learn that and life will go back to “normal” quickly after getting sober. However, it’s been a revelation that has taken me a long time to come around to. When I first started thinking about quitting, it was hard not to be drawn in by the success stories of all those people who quit before me. Stories about the weight they lost, the hobbies they acquired, the relationships that were improved, how much money they saved, the ample free time that they found in any given day. And, oh boy, was the idea of more free time appealing!

Stopping drinking cannot fix problems drinking didn’t cause.

Yet, whenever I’d stop drinking, life was the same just without drinking. I still felt wiped out, depressed, stressed, distanced from loved ones, etc. I didn’t get why this was happening until someone on the /r/stopdrinking subreddit pointed out: Stopping drinking cannot fix problems drinking didn’t cause. That is, while stopping drinking freed my mind from the alcohol trap, stopping by itself couldn’t solve problems. This applies not only to stress level and depression, but also free time. In reality, it wasn’t that I was lacking in free time while drinking, just that I was filling that time with drunkenness. Thus, what could have been time spent reflecting or processing or recuperating was filled with the staticky mess that is my mind while drinking. All that means is that when I stop drinking, I don’t “have” more time, I just have more of my day where I’m actually present. It makes sense to me as I type it, but I think that’s only because I’ve lived through this experience multiple times now. 

Drinking cannot solve problems not drinking didn’t cause.

As I reflect on my drinking career (and it has always been a job), one of the themes at the core is a desire to escape un-diagnosed depression. It’s especially clear now that I’ve been diagnosed and am working through courses of treatment and learning to cope through other means. The idea of alcohol as an “off-switch” is still very much in my mind and it still frequently rears its head at my worst moments. When that happens, I need to take a bit of a converse approach to my earlier statement and realize that “drinking cannot solve problems not drinking didn’t cause”; drunkenness really is only a cure for sobriety for me and sobriety isn’t a condition I want to be cured of at this time.  

In conclusion, it’s been a long journey to get where I am today. I spent a long time drinking and have really only spent about 5 years earnestly trying to get sober. There’s a lot to recover from and a lot of vital adult skills that I’ve put off in the name of intoxicated escapes. If nothing else, this lesson and its challenges are a reminder that I need to be kind to myself as I go through this process… work through this process. Everyone is different, so what takes some people no time to get through in recovery, might take me a few years. What takes me a few years to get done, might take you a couple of weeks. 

We are all different in our lives and our journeys through sober explorations are no different. Yet, there is one similarity: we should all practice kindness to ourselves. In fact, while the first lesson I mentioned has been critical in my recovery process, it’s been overshadowed by my need to be better at practicing kindness to myself. This is not only part of my working through depression but also part of my general life improvement work. It’s very hard to get ahead when the voice in your mind is telling you you’re never good enough, or not as good as that person. So, with work, I’ve been asking myself to change that dialog and put effort into talking to myself in a way that I’d talk to a friend or want a friend to talk to me. Sure, there are ways in which I can get better, but it might take more time than “NOW”, today, next week, etc. 

As you think about your relationship to alcohol, I encourage you to put some effort behind being neutral towards yourself, rather than chiding yourself with things like, “I drink too much” or “I can’t control myself when I drink”. These things may be true, but are they as useful as saying something to yourself like, “I wonder why I like to drink as much as I do” or “There are parts of my life that I’d like to have better control over, and drinking seems to compromise that goal.” They’re small changes, but they represent a shift from criticism to curiosity which, to me, is a form of kindness. Entering into a situation without making assumptions isn’t easy but it allows us to really explore the roots of something. This doesn’t only have to apply to drinking, either. As I’ve been working on this with respect to drinking, I’ve also found myself taking the mindset elsewhere in life, including eating, doomscrolling, accepting boredom, and so on. Perhaps this is another aspect of life improvement that’s spawning from working on not drinking.

Is there anything about your own journey towards or through sobriety that’s enlightened broader aspects of your life? Feel free to reach out and share your advice or lessons learned. Next week, I’ll share my story of my drinking career or at least part of it.

Hello and welcome to craftbrewsobriety. I am Spacebaryaya and while that’s a silly name, it’s one I’ve been using over the years as I investigate my relationship with alcohol and learn to live while sober. (My phone just suggested “with alcohol” after I typed “relationship”. What does that tell you?) I started this blog longer ago than I could recall until I saw my first post was in 2018. However, I’ve been questioning my drinking since I first started in 2001. 

Why are we here together? Well, this all started for me as I’ve been seeking to break the last thing that was holding me to drinking: craft beer. Not long after I started drinking, I turned to beer because it felt like an adventure being led by others. There were so many flavors to be found and such fun packaging, who wouldn’t love it? When I got into brewing my own, I initially found satisfaction in the creativity outlet as well. By exploring all the flavors nature had to offer from hops, yeast, water, and grain, and what humans could do through roasting and altering water chemistry, and what I could do in “branding” my brews and tweaking recipes, it felt like an endless exploration. 

Sadly, this turned into a way for me to drink however much I wanted completely unsupervised. These drinking habits are something I’ll cover in future posts, but for now, that idea of craft brew is the lynchpin here. Through this blog, I’m looking to share stories about my path to sobriety; bring attention to tools that have helped me along this path; and hopefully find some things that resonate with you, the reader.

This is a kickoff of a target to post each week on Monday. Is there anything you’d like to know more about? Questions you’d like to ask anonymously (or publicly)? Do feel free to reach out in the comments. I look forward to sharing my journey and starting discussions with you about this oft-unspoken aspect of adult life.

Everything that I’m feeling these days (especially in the mornings) has started to show that this pattern of drinking is untenable. The reason I started this site was because that feeling had started to dawn on me gradually. At the time that I first took a break from drinking in 2016, it was because I was tired of the chase for the high. In 2017 I fought the urge to drink and won some days but gave up and lost many more. Now, we’re almost through 2018 and I’m feeling like I’m on the losing end of the deal.

Earlier this morning, I took out a bag of recycling. It was full of empty cans and bottles which I’d been hiding. As I was filling up the bag, fighting the persistent morning headaches that have become standard, I had a flashback of visiting another family member with a drinking problem, and being shocked to find their bathroom closet filled with empty cans, tucked into the corner behind the towels. Fittingly, a few days later I had my own beer while taking a shower in that same bathroom. Perhaps that was some sort of weird act of unknowing empathy–I see where you’re coming from because someday it’s looking like I’ll be there too.

Now, a number of years later, I am there. I’m not hiding empties in my bathroom closet, but that’s only because I don’t need to; there are many less obvious hiding places in my house. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that at least one of my family members had found the stash and was too freaked out to say anything or just didn’t know what to make of it. After all, I never did a great job of hiding it and drunk me had little interest in putting out a lot of effort to begin with. Really, this stash issue is the physical manifestation of the problem I think I’m facing to begin with: stuff is piling up.

Let’s be frank here, I haven’t stopped drinking yet. In the face of mounting evidence, both personal and from reading scientific and medical articles, there are evenings (most evenings, in fact) where I find myself with a beer in hand. Rather, I find myself with the bottomless glass in hand; as soon as I reach one last swig, it’s up and off to the fridge to top off again. The last two nights have been particularly bad, as I’ve been waking up around 4:00 AM to find a partially empty glass next to my bed, having fallen asleep without brushing my teeth. For all the thinking that having a drink or two or three is some sort of self-care, moments like these stand out as that personal evidence that drinking is really no such thing.

When I reflect on the reasons that I started drinking after stopping drinking (after starting drinking, etc), the most apparent thread is that I haven’t taken to talking about not drinking. That is, I’ve failed to be more vocal about not drinking. Sure, I’ve been good at not ordering drinks at events, but when someone else is picking up the tab or placing the orders, I tend to go the easy route and get the booze. One is followed with the second. The third then follows that, then I go home and drink to the extent of my ability. By no means am I saying that I need to be telling people why I don’t drink, in some sermon-like form, but I should be a little bit more brave about turning down drinks.

Really, that’s why I started this blog. I participated in the r/stopdrinking subreddit more regularly when I most recently wanted to stop drinking and it was good. There were moments when reading about other people’s struggles and strength helped boost my own. By checking in and sharing my stories, I felt an added sense of support. But, over time, I dropped off. Mostly I kept mindful of the “no posting while drunk” rule, which means I don’t post that often because I’m now mostly drinking during my off time. Hopefully, but logging some thoughts on here on occasion, in a publicly accessible and dedicated forum, I can work out some means and methods to get to where I want to be, which, to sum it up is not “Not Drinking” but rather, “Wanting Not to Drink”.