Three years
At 3:27AM Friday morning my phone squawked out a notification. I wasn’t that interested, so I went back to sleep. I kinda knew what it was about anyhow.
The first day I wasn’t going to drink anymore I put an app on my phone called Sober Time. I entered the hour and minute of the time that morning when I woke up on the couch trying to figure out why I was on that couch. I also entered how much I spent a month on booze. (I have saved $5,408.68.)
That notification was to let me know that at that exact minute I hadn’t had a drink in three years. That’s good news.
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It was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. It’s pretty significant to go from drinking every day to never drinking again. I can’t speak for all drunks but I didn’t like being one. It’s a predictable treadmill: hungover and regretful in the morning, the empty promise to not drink that night after work. During the day your liver metabolizes the booze from the previous night and by the end of the day you’re pretty much back to normal. By the time the sky is dark, you’re back to unscrewing the cap on the bottle of vodka and using your mouth to pour out 1 to 3 ounces of that delicious elixir. All done surreptitiously. Repeat as needed.
I wanted to stop but I coudn’t flip the switch. I knew it was going to have to be an all or nothing endeavor. I wasn’t sure if I was made of the kind of stuff it takes to never drink again. I come from a long line of alcoholics, functioning or otherwise. When my brother quit back in the middle sixties, I remember my father disdainfully talking about how my brother couldn’t “handle his liquor.” Even as a ten year old kid I knew that was unfair to say. Actually, quitting means you can handle it quite well, thank you.
So I asked for help. I’m not religious, I was not raised that way. I even test drove a few churches over the years but it never did a thing for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in people you can’t see. I think that when you die, you leave your body and change frequencies. You can stay here and do whatever people do in the spirit realm or go elsewhere. I’m not too clear on what actually happens. But I have seen and benefited from the effects of people living at a higher frequencies, it’s all been good stuff.
But I think there are spirits (for lack of a better term) that hang around us and try to help us out. That’s who I asked for help. I tried to make it clear to them that if they would meet me halfway, I would do my part.
During this boozy lifestyle I maintained, I had dreams that were kind of sad. In these dreams my wife and I lived in separate houses. We were friendly but we weren’t married anymore. No one said that in the dream, it was implied. I would go over to her house and help her with stuff but in the end I left for wherever I lived. I don’t often remember dreams but I remembered those dreams because there was more than one. It became clear to me that I was seeing the future. I was going to lose her if I didn’t change.
So then this happened. My life changed. Things got easier. I recommend it.
