My heroes wereTravelersWanderersAdventurersWriters And mostly drunks Jack KerouacHunter S ThompsonKeseyBukowskiHemingway It seemed that to beWackyWeirdAdventuring with the flowThat you had to be Drunk Isn’t that the fantasy?Wild and freeEnding up in a random Mexican barSeeing how far the night can goButThat’s not quite the reality Reality sets in the days afterWhen my compassSpins roundMy starDims downMy heartUnheardWith no ideaWhere I amAnymore It doesn’t have to take a poisonTo be wild and freeI know who I amI’m down for anythingI’ll dance until the sun comes upCollapse laughing in your armsBut this timeMy compassMy starMy heartDoesn’t get so far lost

As 2020 winds down, I have been ferociously beating myself up that I haven’t been able to remain sober continuously since I decided to start this alcohol free journey in April. I’ve fallen. A lot. And recently. This week I was getting upset because I would like to look back on 2020 as the year I quit drinking alcohol. And I’m realizing it still was. Every time I’ve slid back into drinking doesn’t discount all the times I chose not to drink. So at the close of this year, I step back and count all the alcohol free moments I…

I’m surprised it took two months on lockdown with my Mom during the coronavirus pandemic to get into a major argument. It started small, but then exploded. I was extremely upset, I didn’t quite realize at the time but I cried, ALOT. I felt stressed, and a lot of childhood anxieties and emotions came up again, stuff I hadn’t felt in quite a while.  I was with her in the car when it happened, we were headed for a walk on the beach. When we got there, we ended up going our separate ways. I stumbled around for a while,…

Sleep, oh lovely and delicious healing sleep, thank you for visiting me again now that alcohol is gone from my life. It’s been way too long. I’ve been catching up on the sleep I missed out on for the last 15 years. Seems like 10 hours a night my body and brain are healing. Healing from all the abuse I put it through. Flushing out the poison I drank all that time. I asked myself, Why am I sleeping so much? Ohhhhh, your body needs to heal, it dawns on me. So, what is the healing process after you stop…

Usual routine in the evening when drinking… After procrastinating a lot of work during the day because I am foggy or unclear or unmotivated (because I am hungover and drained of energy from the alcohol I drank the night before), a thought creeps in my head: “Well crap, I still have work I SHOULD get done, maybe a drink will motivate me. This will be a lot better with a drink. A couple drinks will help me get this work done.” A COUPLE DRINKS NEVER HELPED ME GET WORK DONE. What would happen was: getting a buzz, getting drunk, saying…

I knew for a while that alcohol affected my sleep. Yet it seemed like I thought I could somehow brilliantly figure out how to moderate alcohol and navigate this situation so it didn’t happen. A surefire way to drive myself insane. How can I still drink and get good sleep? It must be possible, I thought. A couple alcoholic drinks always meant tossing and turning, restless. It meant trying to get to sleep for hours. And then once I did fall asleep, I would usually wake up at 3 or 4am, unable to go back asleep again. I would lay…

While stuck in quarantine, lockdown, whatever the hell this is, I decided to quit drinking. I figure the slow exposure to social situations and the chance to build my “sober toolbox” will help me to navigate the unfamiliar landscape of life without alcohol. Since it’s so damn slow to get back into “normalcy” during lockdowns, I have the opportunity to think through situations that might come up when I may be tempted to drink socially and how I might be able to handle them. When trying to quit drinking for the umpteenth time, I remember reading about a sober strategy…

I was pacing circles around the house, looking in the mirror constantly. I seemed to need to keep reminding myself of how much I hated what I saw there, how much the alcohol was taking away my prettiness, hating myself even more for continuing to drink despite knowing this. It was vanity and it was, well, I just wanted to stop hating myself for my choices. During forced lockdowns, I had no distractions. My habitual choices were in plain view. Even with nowhere to go, no parties, no social events, no friends, nothing, I was still drinking every day. And…