At one time, I ran a blog called Fitterverse: A universe of fitness. This post originally appeared there. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I’ve been able to recapture the text. I’ve published them here on their original publication dates.
I’ve now done something I never thought I’d be able to do. I quit drinking alcohol permanently and completely. I feel pretty confident in that statement, as it’s now been nearly three months.
Why did I do it? Well, it certainly doesn’t fit in with fitness and health, for one. But also, I come from a long line of alcoholics, and I see those tendencies in myself. I can’t have one drink. If I have a glass of wine, I drink the bottle. Not one beer, but a six-pack or more. It’s probably a good thing that the only hard liquor I really like is single-malt Scotch, and I’m too cheap to guzzle that. I also don’t like what I become when I’m drunk. I’m a mean drunk, generally looking for a fight.
What has struck me most about this journey is how many different activities we participate in as a society revolve around alcohol, or at least contain the expectation that you’ll consume it. I give you a few examples:
- Work – once you’ve reached a certain management level, a few drinks is a pretty common way to negotiate or close a deal, or celebrate.
- Sporting events – it never really dawned on me that the only reason I’d ever agree to go to a baseball game is to sit in the stands and drink beer.
- Dining out – who doesn’t have a pre-dinner cocktail, or a glass of wine or beer with dinner?
- Festivals – the city in which I live has a wine festival. Not likely you’re gonna go to that without drinking!
Every day I come across another situation in which the expectation would be that I’d have an alcoholic drink. Initially it frustrated me, because I wanted to join the party, too. Now it saddens me at some level, because I realize that so much of our culture is based on alcohol and its effects.