Reflection on a Week Without Alcohol

Last Tuesday night (super-early Wednesday morning, in actuality), I was enjoying my last (so far anyway) alcoholic beverage, a 24 oz. Busch Light as I recall, doing some reading and making some observations. It isn't often that I've decided to really pay attention to the manner in which I read – especially considering, until recently, I haven't really spent much time reading at all unless it was in a game of some sort. I noticed that, not only was I reading more slowly than I had earlier in the day (before work), but I was re-reading the same passages three and four times in order to properly grasp the meanings of the text.

This isn't as simple as not comprehending the words – I found myself skipping words; entire lines. I found it rather disconcerting that after consuming only 12 -16 oz of alcohol my ability to read was so seriously impaired. I imagined that all methods by which I could take in information were similarly compromised. I think this observation is what brought me to the conclusion that I needed to do something different.

After sleeping it off, I spent some time before work Wednesday reading about quitting drinking. Obviously, there are a great multitude of differing opinions on the best method, and no one particular source was any more helpful than another. I finally decided on a simple “cold turkey” approach, which seemed the most logical and has worked for me in the past. Maybe this doesn't work quite like smoking for most people, but I can honestly say that the easiest way to quit something is to simply quit.

As a result of quitting, I have noted an increase in my attentiveness at work and at home (during our home-schooling hours); at times I wouldn't have been drinking anyway. It is clear to me that the alcohol's effect on the brain, while most pronounced immediately after consumption, is still present many hours after the more immediate effect has worn off. These effects, I'm guessing, are cumulative over time, and seem to reduce over time much like the half-life of a radioactive isotope. I imagine I have some time ahead of me before fully realizing the benefit of this choice, but already I have had friends come to me and congratulate me, and, in one particular instance, open up to me about how unhelpful I had been on certain past occasions as a result of my heedlessness. Of course, I've also had some skeptical attitudes thrown at me, but all these words (positive or negative) have only strengthened my resolve, and I am thankful for them.

So I've gone seven days without so much as a sip of an alcoholic beverage, a feat I have not so much as tried to accomplish in over ten years. Am I terribly impressed? No, not really. There are other areas of my life in which much improvement is needed, and I've only truly started to reap the rewards of this particular change. That said, the rewards already have indeed been significant in the form of improved mental concentration in general, including extra “willpower” so-to-speak against the other various negative influences in life. I am hopeful that readers of this blog (however few of you there may be) can find something helpful or uplifting in this commentary. We each have struggles to overcome in life, and, quite clearly, one must admit that an issue exists to ever truly hope to address it.

Be well, friends, and thank you.

Thanksgiving in Review (and other news)

A couple weeks have passed since I last felt like updating, and a few worthwhile happenstances have taken place.

First and foremost, Thanksgiving:

My sisters came down to visit for the holiday weekend, providing an interesting, and enjoyable upheaval to the status quo at home. I actually felt like they connected a bit with my wife's family while they visited for the Thanksgiving meal, and over the weekend we had the chance to watch some Netflix shows that I would have never thought to watch (Death Note, for example). The visit gave Dalton some time with his aunts, something I think he misses out on far too much, and honestly, I think they miss out on him too (even if they don't realize it).

To the right, a photo of my sisters, myself, and my son enjoying Thanksgiving and discussing video gaming.  I seem to recall discussing PC vs. Console gaming; the advantages and disadvantages of each, particularly as it relates to multi-player gaming.  Below, left to right, my sisters (Shelly and Jenny) and my wife (Michelle) taken over the holiday weekend.

    

Additionally, in the weeks immediately prior to Thanksgiving, my son and I had begun playing hot seat games of Civilization V.  Interestingly, my son has gotten reasonably good at it (mind you, he is only six years old) and actually beat me in our first game.  Of course, I played at a significant disadvantage (Warlord difficulty vs. Settler) and spent much of the game giving him pointers instead of building my own country, but he has continued to display increasing skill in each subsequent game.  Below:  A brief video of him playing a turn of Civ over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Don't ask me what he's singing -- I seriously have no idea.  It was his last turn before bedtime, so I think his brain was shutting down already.

Now, moving on to more recent events; in what I've realized is probably an extremely surprising move on my part, I've decided to deepen my Dharma practice with the taking of the Fifth Precept. For anyone who's been keeping up with recent posts, you may recall that it is the abstaining of alcoholic beverages (primarily), something I have been hesitant to eliminate from my life. In fact, over ten years of habit-forming made the decision rather difficult to come to – I spent several weeks rationalizing my drinking with thoughts like “it isn't hurting anyone” and “it has not let me to get in trouble yet.”

Wednesday, I finally came to the point when I realized that my ability to progress spiritually (and mentally) was severely hindered by alcohol. Being a hindrance, it only makes sense that I work to eliminate it so that I have the opportunity to advance.

I won't promise to never drink an alcoholic drink again, but I do not need it in my home as a general rule, nor in any other place where I might choose to focus on the strengthening of my mind.  That said, I mentioned once that I had likely consumed over one million calories in my lifetime from alcohol alone, and I think it is reasonable to assume at this point that I would do well to restrict it for health reasons as well.

On the subject of Dharma practice, I have created a new study guide, which includes a number of improvements over the previous one.  Namely, it is printed in color, includes a number of tactile / appearance enhancements, and I've added nearly 40 pages of content.  It is also noteworthy that I spent some time fixing spelling and other typographical errors, as well as fixing an entire page that I somehow missed on the original booklet.

Right:  The new study guide, completed Sunday.

Below: Left is a corner view attempting to display a major enhancement on the finishing of the cover.  Right is an open-book view of the new one by itself.

In closing, be well friends.  I will try to post again soon.

A Ramble on Milestones

I feel like I'm hitting a couple of significant milestones this year, so I kinda feel like talking about that for a moment.

We all gauge the progress of our lives in different ways, on that much I think most people can agree. Some of us think of the passing of time in terms of what job we were working or which woman we were with at any given point on the time line, and I can only imagine that many people find a multitude of different, sometimes odd ways, to delineate the passage of time.

I have a few different means for measuring time that are significant to me today. The first is the measure of my marriage, which, in August, will reach eight years into my past. Reaching two years further would be the date when I met my wife. Yes, she and I have been together an entire decade. Another significant measure of time for me would be my son's lifespan, currently six years. So, in a four year period, I met my wife, married her, and had our first child.

In the six years proceeding, there are only a few other noteworthy milestones, but they're pretty big...

First, our move to Cincinnati (and the employment changes that came with it). Moving was a big change for me, going from the small-town mentality to managing my time in perspective of the larger city. That, and my employment change was massive – warehouse work is a huge culture shock to someone having worked a IT help desk for nine years previous. While I see the move as having been a very positive thing for my family, it was not a good change for me singularly, and it has brought about a number of various issues in my life that I have dealt with over time.

While dealing with the stress of preparing to move, and subsequently dealing with the new job and seemingly insane people I had to get used to working with, I note for the record that I quickly became “that guy” that drinks every night without a reason. Today, this milestone I see is a bit more approximate, but significant none the less... Accounting for days when I was ill, I can safely estimate that I have consumed an average of four alcoholic beverages every night over the past 2,000 nights. That's over one-million calories for anyone keeping score, meaning I could possibly weight in about 125 pounds lighter today had I never drank a drop of it.

And that isn't said in an effort to suggest that I intend to quit drinking... I'm simply too analytical to not see it for what it is, and it is a systematic change that has affected my life dramatically over the years.

So the fact is that I've effectively become a “functional alcoholic” in the last five or so years while adapting to a giant home and family change that then became an ugly, and belated fiscal policy change – another milestone, if you will. In many ways, our choice to move to Cincinnati forced us into bankruptcy, albeit not because of the move itself but my own estimation that we would at least make income equal to 70% of what we had made prior to the move.

We didn't, and still don't.

It took a few years, but we finally realized that we were going bankrupt two years ago and made a series of changes to our financial policy that have kept our main bills paid while discharging all the ones we couldn't afford anymore, including two cars, a house, and over $20,000 in credit card debt.

It also included a personal loan to my dad, which to this day I am frustrated at not having been able to repay...

So now I start to move into familiar territory...

Aside from my Dad's recent diagnosis with cancer (which I don't feel like discussing today), I also had a significant event among my circle of friends.  Four months ago I made a drive northward to visit two of them, the only two from my high school days that I have retained any concern for over the years. That said, I have come to recognize this event as a bit of a closure, in that I seem immensely less likely to see two friends again in the near future... and in a way, while we are still friends in the sense that matters, we are no longer friends in the manner such as we were 11-12 years ago...

Sure, it is common for friends to sort of move on after high school, but I guess I only realized it had happened to us after this one particular get-together. Both of these friends and I have had but a few actual conversations since that day, and one has been so far aloof as to post on Twitter that he has a new phone number but he has not bothered to tell me what it is – which kind of feels like a slap in the face to me, but in an odd sort of way I'm okay with it, if maybe a little irritated, because I figure I'm easy enough to reach that anyone that really wants to will call when they want.

Fact is, I grew tired of being ignored and forgotten when I need a friend around that same time, and I have since given up on the idea that anyone really wants to listen to me talk about my troubles.

So I guess the odd thing is that most days I feel happy when I go to sleep and happy (if maybe a litltle groggy) when I wake up. That is pretty damned amazing considering how much I complain about nearly every person and everything that irritates me throughout every day... I kinda wonder if there will eventually be a day when I will look into the past and say that 2,000 days have passed since I started feeling happy inside again.