Booze

Before I begin, I want to say, categorically, that I’m not going to pick up a drink. When I think about the escape that alcohol provides, I can’t help but remember the emotional prison where it held me hostage for so long. ...

It’s August. That’s part of it. I’m approaching four years of sobriety and I can feel the squirrels prancing around in my brain. I didn’t recognize it at first. I knew that something was off, but it didn’t occur to me that this “offness” could be rooted in the fact that I’m nearing in on 1460 days without a drink. Actually 1461 because of leap year, but who’s counting? ...

A little over a year ago I had become a master at hiding my reality. I wouldn’t answer the phone after a certain point in the day. I wouldn’t make calls before a certain point in the day. I didn’t want to be seen by people who knew me. I spread my liquor buying habits out among several stores. I buried my empties deep in the recycling bin. I hid what was really going on from the rest of the world. Only my immediate family could see how bad things were externally, but even they didn’t know the true depths of despair that were the result of my daily drinking. That’s because I didn’t speak about what was going on. And when I did, I spoke in broken code and half truths. ...

When I think about the first 30 days of my sobriety today I have an overwhelming sense of relief. I don’t ever want to go through that again. I mean, it was incredibly difficult to simply turn it off and stop drinking daily. But that’s what I did. I stopped. I remember overwhelming fatigue. Fatigue that hit hard in the middle of the day. Most days of that first 30, I was down for the count for a solid 1 to 2 hours in the middle of the day. Thankfully I work form home and so I got away with it. I don’t know how I’d have dealt with it if I were in an office or on a job site. I remember not wanting to cook dinner. ...

Facebook has a remarkable way of reminding me exactly how crazy things had gotten in my life. You know those “Memories” that it shows. Many of mine are related to what I was drinking that day. Either a picture of a drink, a check in on untapd, or even more disturbing a post about how much I was looking forward to having a drink. It’s been nine months and one day since I took my last drink. ...

Are binge drinking and alcoholism related? I'm sure there are people far better qualified than me to answer this question, but I'll share some insights that I've gleaned from my own reading and I'll share my own experience. Let’s begin with a definition of binge drinking from the CDC’s site: ...

Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic.In September 2015, I began abstaining from alcohol and attending regular meetings. ...

Having a Laugh with Schwinger Photo by Marvin Joseph Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic. ...

Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic. ...

Original image: “Migraines” (not preserved in the archive). Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic. ...

Original image: “2 Days and Counting” (not preserved in the archive). Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic. ...

Original image: “Countdown to 30 Days” (not preserved in the archive). Update: This is a post from another blog. I migrated it to this blog because it’s an important part of my story. This was posted just over three years before I fully surrendered and accepted that I am an alcoholic. ...