A (sort of) Dry January

I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it. Even as I agreed to try, that deep intuition in my stomach told me how it was going to turn out. Should I feel depressed? Disappointed? I wasn't sure how I felt except that my heartbeat didn't speed up or slow down. Dry January is a month long, and I would be surprised if I made it to 6pm without having another drink. But sure. Let's give it a try.

I should probably give some context so this all makes a little more sense. I'm from a big, loving family that lives in a fishbowl filled with aged bourbon and tequila cocktails. Two of my sisters decided against taking the plunge and actively criticize our alcohol fueled tendencies; the rest of us pretend we don't have a problem. It's like a fun game of cirrhosis roulette. And you might think that you would be able to recognize our degeneracy immediately, but you would be wrong. Even after our worst nights, we'll wake up for work like a good little capitalist trooper, dress for success, and walk out the door ready to show the world that there's no reason for us to cut down on the drinking because we're on time and doing just fine. It might be a rough day, but nothing that a few drinks can't cure after work.

So why am I breaking ranks now? The simple answer is that I watched my dad in front of the  TV one night and it terrified me. My dad had stopped drinking because he had developed heart problems, but alcohol played a tremendous part in who he became over the years. He traded everything he could be proud of - success, kindness, tolerance, dignity - for another pour. My respect for him was one of the first to go, but the horror I felt at the prospect of becoming him was a new development. I resolved to stop drinking. It was a soft, gummy bear like resolve that always wanted to start tomorrow, but it was more than the other fishies in my family.

That brings us to the present, where I made the mistake of telling my sister about my newfound resolve. The funny thing was that my sister wasn't asking me to stop drinking for a month because she thought I had a problem; most people thought I had my shit together and my sister was no exception. She thought I would be a good example for everyone else. No one else in the family agreed to even try staying sober when she asked (no surprise here, they don't see the point or need for it), so I don't know why I decided to take up the mantle. I mean, I would really like to actually have my shit together and now I had my gummy bear resolve, but none of that translates into the kind of self control I need to be successful.

With all of that in mind, I will give you an update: the good news is that I made it past 6pm before I had my first drink. The bad news is that I rewarded myself with an extra drink for having the self control to make it until 7. And before you start judging me and thinking I'm a lazy, good-for-nothing alcoholic, let me say that you're only partially correct. I am lazy, sometimes good-for-nothing, but no one has found out that I'm probably an alcoholic yet so the label has yet to be formally applied. 

Hopefully, I'm sober before anything can stick. Now that I'm actually paying attention, I can see that it's worse than I thought. For example, sometimes I have to give presentations for work and I always prepare diligently in a responsible way that showcases my professionalism. What I mean is that I don't know the material very well and I pour whiskey in a coffee cup to get liquored up enough to speak with confidence. It works better than you would like to admit, but probably not as well as I think. 

Day 2 of my dry January “resolution” doesn't go very long before I fail again. My sister thinks I'm killing it and briefly mentions how happy she is that I'm setting a good example. That alone made me drink a few beers with lunch. I'll teach her a lesson, pour me another one! It feels good to be rebellious, especially when I can protest by doing something that I like and will be doing anyway. Also, I know that I'm being insufferably disingenuous because I didn't have to agree to be sober in January for her. I feel bad again, so I have a couple more drinks.

I didn't like the emotional up and down from day 2, so I decided to go running on day 3. I felt fat and heavy, and I'm pretty sure my watch is broken because it showed that my minute per mile pace watching Netflix is faster than my current running pace. It's probably better to just not pay attention, anyway. I felt pretty good after the the run. Why is my run time suffering so much? Is it alcohol, lack of exercise, shit diet, or a combination of everything? And if it's a combination, which part affects it the most? I looked for some good articles while eating dinner. We were out of wine, but I was too tired to make a run to the store.

I woke up with enough energy to get in a workout in the morning before my first meeting. I was still fixated on solving my run time problem - I used to be a great runner, so this was a blow to my ego - when someone brought up an issue in the meeting. I've heard the issue a few times before and just thought that it was mindless drivel from a stuffy cat lady, but suddenly the pieces linked together in a comprehensive way and I saw how the problem would extend to everyone on the team if it's not addressed. I said I would focus on fixing it over the next week. Everyone looked at me in surprise and maybe a bit of silent approval? I don't blame them, I was also surprised but acted in such a matter-of-fact way to show that THEY are the ones acting strange, not me. 

A week later and the problem at work was fixed. My run time was still abysmal, but slightly less. I came upon an article about how to combine slow cardio and VO2 max workouts to help drive improvement, so I'm trying that out. I'm starting to get annoyed with my brother's insistence that we drink whiskey every night as a toast to some success or future success, which is usually just some kind of imagined bullshit: “Here's to the millions of dollars that will be ours before we know it, and to the end of our limitations on this Earth!” You have to imagine this toast in a slightly slurred voice for full effect. Was it always this obnoxious? Or was I just as toasted? For the first time ever, I poured the rest of my drink down the sink when he wasn't looking. I just wasn't feeling it.

My sister came up to me on the last day of the month to ask how I did, and of course I did so well that I didn't even notice a difference between drinking and not drinking. We both knew I was lying, but I only just noticed then that she knew I was lying the whole time. Maybe she knew something about gummy bear resolve that I didn't, that even a lie could be some kind of start. I made a mental note to explore this idea a bit more later, I had to make my coffee before my presentation and was running a bit short on time. But recently I'd been prepared, so I wasn't too worried.