Friday, January 21, 2011

could you (would you) give up booze?

During my morning spin of facebook (and yes, I look at it first thing, before I check my horoscope and the price of gold), I noticed that one of my friend's (actually, the brother of a friend, but a facebook friend nonetheless) status message read "hasn't had a drink in 710 days".  My first thought was "wow, good for you dude, that is TERRIFIC" and I immediately clicked "like".  My second thought was "that is a long ass time to go without a glass of wine".  My third thought was "I don't know if I could do it".  That is a complete cop out though.  I am one of the most hard headed people out there.  If I decided I wasn't going to have a drink for 710 days, I could do it.  So the question is not "could I", the question is "would I". 

Probably not is the answer.  I have cut back significantly over the last few months.  The glass of wine I felt entitled to every evening as as method of helping me "relax" has been replaced with good old fashioned exercise.  I now go weeks at a time without one sip of alcohol.  But I still like knowing that if I wanted a vodka and soda I could have one.  The challenge now is that I have very little tolerance, so one drink is enough and I often don't even finish it.  I also find that I don't feel so hot the next morning if I imbibe.  I'm turning into one of "those people" I used to shake my head at.  Man, getting old sucks.  I remember how in my early twenties I could go out after work, socialize all evening, fall into bed well after midnight and be back at my desk bright eyed and bushy tailed by 8:30am, ready to do it all over again.  Apparently those days are long gone.  Increasingly I find myself acting responsibly and behaving in a manner that takes into consideration how doing something now will make me feel in the future.  It's a lot less fun but has spared me much physical agony and car detailing costs.

So my question is, could you (would you) give up booze for 710 days?  I could, but I don't want to.  How about you?

7 comments:

  1. the question is, where do you check your horoscope and is it accurate?

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  2. I often tell myself I want to completely give up booze, but that only happens after a night of heavy heavy drinking.

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  3. @vera - I don't buy all this new horoscope bs. I am a taurus through and through.

    @designmojo - lmao - I have had a few of those epiphanies myself. Never seemed to last long though!

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  4. I drank hardcore for twenty years. It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually wanted to stop drinking, but felt I couldn't. I had one attempt where I went nearly a year sober, but literally one sip of booze led to another one of my infamous benders. I now know not to fool myself into thinking I can have just one. Over two years and counting now without as much as a drop of alcohol. I'm glad I could inspire a weblog post, Kat!

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  5. @BFD - you rock! I have been thinking a lot lately about why I drink, be it a glass of wine or whatever. When I was doing therapy I figured out that I thought it helped me relax, but really all it was doing was numbing me from feeling something I didn't want to feel (stressed, sad, pissed off). So now that I'm not so afraid of feeling those things I'm finding other ways to deal with them that actually help me, like exercising. Seems so obvious but it is so easy to forget.

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  6. Gave it up over 20 years ago (no halo here, plenty consumption in a past life).I took my dear departed father's advice: While a student (university days) most people on earth will say you are a student doing stupid student things (ie: being a HUGE booze consumer). So, I GREATLY supported the share value of most, if not all, beer and rum manufacturers for a five year undergraduate period (not a loser – doing two degrees and being a high school drop out I had to make up the prerequisites). On graduation day I chucked the last beer bottle in the garbage (not recycle bins in those days) and never drank since. Again, no angel was I. What keeps me from drinking is cost, I went to the beer store to get a case for visitors this Christmas and holy frikin cow - $40 a case! I near had a stroke, got better places to spend.

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  7. I would think maybe this friend is a recovering alcoholic and is proud of his days in sobriety. I post how many days I have been in recovery on my blog, now 8 months! What started off as a way to "relax" in the evening turned into an addiction for me. I am no longer the person who can have that "one" and that's it. I now envy people who can do just that. And I'm with you, I wouldn't quit either if I didn't have to. Love the picture of MM!

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