Happy Thanksgiving

I was on food shopping duty last night.  I had to get this and that for the big dinner today, and I also had to go and buy three bottles of wine.  It was such a strange feeling, looking for the wine.  I've been to many bars since quitting drinking and it has not been a problem.  People drinking in front of me saying "aw, geez sorry man" thinking that it is eating away at me, but it is not.

But picking up a bottle of Pinot Noir or Cabernet, holding it and looking at it, I somehow visualize drinking it so much more clearly.  Suddenly the thought of how thin the wall between drinking and not drinking really is became evident.  There is nothing stopping me from buying it and walking out of there, cracking it open and drinking it.

I remember it was a few Thanksgivings ago when I was hungover from partying the night before.  I hardly had any food and I really didn't feel well.  How embarrassing.  But that is the thing about drinking: you can drink the exact same way two different times and get a different outcome.  One time you will wake up and feel fine, another time you will have a splitting headache and feel nauseous.  Those are the times when your wife will chastise you for not knowing your limits.  The truth is, we don't know because our limits are always moving about on us.

Be honest and tell me there hasn't been one time when you have only two or three drinks and still wake up feeling like crap, and at least one time when you have 8 or 9 drinks and wake up feeling like a brand new person?  I know there are all the theories - liquor then beer, in the clear, beer then liquor, never been sicker.  The world you are in when you start applying that math has little reason to it anyways, its no wonder the hangovers have no reason to them as well.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  Take a moment to forget your struggles and worries and think of at least three things you are thankful for.  They don't have to be big things, sometimes the smaller things bring us the most happiness.  Like a small shot of whiskey.  Just kidding.

Snow

We had our first snow this weekend, pretty much the first time we've seen snow since March, making this the longest summer I have ever seen here in Minnesota.  Audra and I spent some time shopping today and went through some Christmas displays.  As I go through them I think of all the past Christmases and holiday seasons gone by and how warm the memories are even though the events were in the cold winter.

Drinking events typical to any holiday season November 25 - January 1:
Night before Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day
Various friend's Holiday parties (or our own)
Audra's Work holiday party
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day Night
New Years Eve
New Years Day (Lithuanian Style New Years)

I'm not saying these are all heavy drinking events - just times when Alcohol is served and consumed by me without fail over the last 10 years or so.  Thats 8 confirmed drinking episodes in 5 weeks that I will be skipping out on this year.  As I like to look at it - 8 confirmed hangovers avoided:)

Things are going well otherwise.  I am officially into the point where friends have accepted the sobriety.  I made mention of drinking to a friend at work, and he misunderstood me to think I was planning on giving up.  He really perked up and told me not drink - to go through with my year.  I had no intention of drinking, but it was neat to see a friend go from wondering why I am doing this to rooting for my success.

Thanks again to all those who periodically tune in to this, I promise, I have more interesting posts in mind that I am working on!

About Two Months In

I know I said I would write about drinking games, but screw it, its been a tough couple of weeks and I guess I am in the mood to write whatever I feel like instead.  It's amazing, I have found, how cracking a bottle of root beer can feel very much the same as cracking an actual beer.  The feel of the bottle in your hand, the sound that taking the cap off makes.  Heck, the sound of chucking it into the trash when you finish it and crack a second one - all psychological things that seem to reward your brain in some strange way, just like alcohol did.

I actually dislike discovering those things, because they make me feel like our brains are simpler than they are, you know?  Like knowing that you can train yourself to drool on command like Pavlov's dog, I don't like knowing that about people, especially not about myself.

I think philosophers then distinguish the mind and the soul as two completely separate entities, and I agree with that. It seems to me, the "soul" is something that is apparently tormented and shackled by the weaker "mind" which is the part of you that wants to stay up late playing video games to reward itself with dopamine.

I suppose the nice thing about knowing the distinction is that I can then begin to train my "mind" so that it eventually brings my "soul" to where it can grow and flourish.  I know that the body is the vessel that carries the mind and soul around, but what then is the "spirit"?  (mind, body, spirit, soul, right?)

Oh well, happy two months in:) Ten to go...

Happy Halloween!!

Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays.  Everyone should love an excuse to open your imagination and pretend to be someone else for a night.  Halloween 2003 was my first date with my wife Audra - I was dressed as Neo from the Matrix.  I asked her years later if I had chosen to be dressed like a clown or something silly, if we still would have ended up hitting it off that night.  She said probably not.

Halloween had historically been a big drinking night for me as well.  Being dressed like someone else and being drunk gave me a total cop out on reality, as well as everyone around me.  It's odd to think that as I was running around as a child, gathering pounds of candy, that I should have been much more concerned about drunk drivers rather than kidnappers.

I had a really busy week so I will go back to talking about drinking games after this.  A few years ago when I was not drinking I spent Halloween sober, and I actually had a bummer of a time.  I dwelled on that night in particular when evaluating how drinking impacted my behavior/attitude at parties.  I concluded that I was hanging around a lame crowd of people that night.  I never saw any of them again.  The truth is, several Halloweens since had been upset by alcohol.  Complications from not being able to drive, waiting in line to get into bars, looking for cabs - sorts of things that are directly the result of drinking, is what has caused several Halloween nights to end up in shambles, canceling out any benefits the drinking may have initially caused.

Drinking Games

I've been working a lot lately, which is a good thing, however, one thing it makes clear is how much I miss a beer after a long day - like an 11 hour day.  Oh well, the time does fly by once you get to around the two month mark.

I have a friend in her early twenties and who once told me she hardly ever drinks - that she hates the taste of alcohol, and therefore rarely gets drunk, if ever.  I thought about this for a while and drew some conclusions about myself and my own drinking.  Of course I didn't like the taste of alcohol either when I first tried it.  Beer, wine, liquor, everything tasted terrible.  The only way me and my friends could think of touching the stuff is by making a competition out of it.

We played drinking games to get as much alcohol into our bodies as quickly as possible.  This method of harsh conditioning is what eventually led to sipping on a beer while playing the drinking games.  Once we hit that point, it was clear we had entered into a new level of maturity - we no longer drank with the sole intent to get drunk, but as something to do while we did stuff.

I believe that if someone didn't go through pulverizing their body into simply submitting to the taste of booze - at a young age when that ridiculous activity is condoned, then chances are they never will.  This is how you have people who walk around saying "I don't drink because I don't like the taste."

I will go into a couple of the games in the next posts, because who knows, maybe you will like them:)

Innocent Reminder

Had a mild headache last night and woke up with a strong headache this morning.  Trying to think of the cause, and landed on the flu shot I got Friday afternoon mixed with working on the house yesterday upsetting that shoulder and spreading the ache to my neck/head.  Right or wrong about the cause, it reminds me full well of waking up with a hangover from drinking.  I thought I would make the most of it here.

First 20 minutes of a hangover for me: I wake up, and the headache makes me remember the drinks I had that caused it.  Remembering the drinks usually leads to a sick feeling and a sudden rush of guilt or embarrassment as I remember the money that flitted away with the bar tab, or remember anything stupid I did or said through the evening.  I try to think of some genius way to eliminate the hangover, usually imagining that a hot shower ought to do it.  I take one, and find that the hot water will run out long before the hangover does.  I crawl back into bed, unable to find a comfortable position and try to go back to sleep, but rarely do.

By the way, thanks Mark for putting me on to a few other blogs where people are going through the same thing - one from Australia!  I love technology today.  I plan to take time to read through these.  It will take a while, they are more towards the six month point in the journey.

Identifying triggers

I have run across a couple of triggers lately that have made me want to drink.  So yes, to any of you out there who think I am just coasting through this dry spell, think again.  Today I had a relatively stressful day - it was not negative stress, in fact a lot of cool things happened today.  It was like when I used to wait tables on a Sunday and not have a single mistake.  The payoff then, however, was always taking my apron off at the end of the shift and counting my tips.  One, two, three.... oh thats right, ten bucks off that six-top... 121,122, 123, and dang, I start feeling pretty darn good about my day and go home happy.

The problem is, now when I get home there is no money counting, no apron, and the stories are different too.  I used to be able to tell my parents about a terrible table that came in to my section, and I could go into every detail and they would understand.  I could go to my buddies that night and tell the same story, then to my girlfriend and tell it again.  Now I am lucky if there are a handful of people who I could tell my work stories to.

What happened today?  Well, we were trying to find the most efficient way to pendant mount a fixture so that the conveyors don't interfere with.... aw hell, who cares, right?  To much back story to get to a punchline.

What do I mean about all this?  Alcohol is a common language we all speak.  We can all clang glasses to a job well done, be it waiting tables, auditing an account book, designing a circuit board, or selling medical supplies to distributors.  Perfect scene in "Office Space" where Peter and Lawrence are talking about "The case of the Mondays" - both havin a beer after a rough day, totally different careers.

Thanks for listening, by the way, I am happy to see I have an audience:)