This is a thread for ILXors ON THE WAGON (and for the Wagon Curious)

We do have the "I'm an alcoholic" thread, but the word "alcoholic" can be off-putting and not sufficiently inclusive of all the various reasons for and approaches to Going On the Wagon.

So this is a thread about Not Drinking Alcohol: thinking about it or already there, long-term or short-term, drinking problem or no drinking problem, all welcome, don't be a jerk.

I personally find it meaningful to hear from other people who are Not Drinking for whatever reason. My own reason can be summed up as high-functioning-problem-drinker and I availed myself of plenty of help to quit.

What's your relationship with The Wagon?

oh hi, thanks! yeah I'm not drinking for the foreseeable future while I get my shit together, but it's not the primary driver of the problems - it just greases the rails and numbs the pain. So this thread feels appropriate.

2 weeks today, gonna go for at least 3 months and then see what's up with the other issues.

I found things got significantly easier after 3 weeks.

Not drinking has been tremendously helpful to me for dealing with the issues driving the drinking. I really couldn't have worked on them with any success while still drinking, though I god knows I tried!

thank you, that is encouraging

this Naked Mind book recommended in the other thread seems kind of new agey in a creepy Marianne Williamson way, but I will give it a fair shake even though the author talks about her mysterious back pain that no doctor could fix that she cured with her mind, rmde

That book can be irritating, yes, but it does make some good points despite the weird tone.

The Recovering by Leslie Jamison is better written by miles, but is a totally different ball of wax.

I have tried alcohol on a dozen or so occasions, never much cared for it, at most I got annoyed at how loud and incoherent I felt like I was getting (on 1/3 or so of a beer). So practically speaking I don’t drink, don’t have an interest in it, and never hear anyone talk about drinking in a way that makes me feel like I’m missing out.

This is not the thread for you then

See I read quincie’s op and it seemed like it was, is this a recovery thread or about not drinking alcohol

cmon dude, “on the wagon” is unambiguous

hi, i am a not particularly functional serial binge drinker of 30+ years standing and no amount of attempted moderation or self-control doesn't lead me swiftly back to wildly self-destructive binging, and i know really i must accept i have to stop, proper stop, forever and that is terrifying because the pub goer is about all i feel like i have left of who i am

Noodle Vague's predicament is kind of mine, too. I had a really quite destructive period in my mid-late 30s (mid-40s now) which was part of a larger crisis of purpose. I've since changed career - a move that meant I essentially couldn't drink as much and function at the level at which I need to be - and my relationship to booze has been much healthier. I'm getting to grips with the job now though and, well, I can see old habits creeping back in. And I get long(er) holidays, where I tend to make up for things and this summer in particular, was fairly boozy. Short version: my mental health and relationships suffered.

All of which has meant me taking the last 10 days off and I feel immeasurably better.

I have cut back significantly after fairly heavy drinking for the best part of two decades. It took nearly getting sacked from two consecutive jobs and real and active concern from my partner before I got help. Unfortunately I've kind of replaced that urge with a fondness for prescription painkillers that I need to shake. There's always something but I'm marginally more in control now and optimistic, sometimes

I'll be a boringly functional but killing myself slowly alcoholic till the death I think. My addiction doesn't cause any crisis's so I can happily plod on with it till the death. Or least until my ailing health becomes a crisis, but that is what it take to persuade me to even consider stopping.

This is totally a thread for silby per the original thread intent; people abstain from alcohol for numerous reasons.

I use the term "on the wagon" frequently and casually to mean I am currently not drinking. More because it's a signal to friends that I don't want them cajoling me to go to a bar or to offer me drinks when we hang out. I often have long periods of not drinking (I likely won't be drinking for the rest of the year) because I find it difficult to eat and exercise to the standards I want to be at while drinking even a little.

Booze does have a significant knock-on effect on a whole bunch of things - diet, exercise, sleep, wallet, mental health (to varying, difficult-to-gauge levels). I did 100 days at the start of last year and initially felt great for it - I read more, was generally more 'level', exercised more etc - but I missed the culture around drinking (seeking out new beers) and the way it gave shape to my weeks. I also missed something more nebulous along the lines of the camaraderie of drinking together with people.

I stopped drinking entirely between December 2018 and June 2019 aside from maybe 3 beers over the course of those 7 months, mostly because my drinking habits were manageable but constant; my kids were constantly asking me if every drink I had was a beer and it concerned me that that had become their default impression of me. As a side effect, I lost 15 lbs of weight I'd been whining about but never motivated myself to get rid of.

I'm back to drinking much more moderately now and am very conscious of what I'm doing when watching tv or playing videogames.

Good point about kids. Mine are of an age where they need to see me being responsible not acting like a dick.

I also want to acknowledge calzino's post, but I don't know what to say. Will a nod across the bar suffice in any way at all?

for several years now i've hardly drunk at all, it seems i went from being a social drinker during grad school - occasionally to excess - to having the rare drink with friends. for part of that time i have been a lot more skint, but also once i was drinking alone - which i always rather liked - and the next morning i looked like shit, and figured i was getting too old to be drinking much. i think i probably last imbibed a year or so ago? and similarly in the year before that, etc. this is surely a byproduct of my dead social life. recently i thought i might pick up a little wine or something to have with dinner (was never much for wine), inject a new variable into my routine.

this is the same thing i posted in the other thread

I don’t have a reading rec but this summer I didn’t drink for 2 weeks bc of a health issue, which I realized was the first time I ever attempted complete teetotaling for that long. During that time, I played 2 shows, my dog died suddenly, and I had to go on an overnight retreat w my coworkers — all situations in which I’d have gladly been drinking — and it was definitely hard! I drank inconceivable amounts of flavored seltzer and noticed that I did indeed feel different after about 10 days. Much less depressed, for starters, in spite of the dire circumstances.

Since those two weeks, I’ve been thinking that maybe alcohol just isn’t very good for me. Not terrible, but def not good. Not-drinking is way more appealing than it used to be.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Monday, August 26, 2019 6:50 PM (two weeks ago)

I think that generally, if you are feeling bad AND drinking, stopping drinking is a very good start to feeling better (mentally, physically, etc) If it's difficult, that teaches you something too.

I concur. I didn’t even realize I met DSM criteria for generalized anxiety disorder (despite being in a profession in which I routinely screened others for such) until I went into treatment for SUD. 4+ months later and I no longer meet criteria nor feel anxious much at all! It’s been like a silver fucking bullet. Of course it has been a giant pain in the brain to get to this point, but dear god so worth it.

I find it near impossible to go completely sober so my version of On The Wagon means no drinking at home unless friends are over. This usually results in me going out to bars more regularly but honestly that's a net plus because I'm otherwise too much of a shut-in. I wish I could adhere to this policy year-round but usually can only do a few weeks at a time, 2 or 3 times a year. I definitely notice and enjoy the mental and physical health improvements when I'm not going through a 6-pack plus a few whiskeys every night.

four weeks

Nice! Is it easier now than at week 2?

not really, maybe? no physical craving, just "fuck I really wish I could have a beer right now" about 2-3x a day

well done!

drinking a lot of Topo Chico (thanks brimstead) and Cock N Bull ginger ale

and the new black currant shrub I made which is extremely delicious

it's only five weeks since my ablation -- which has a 12-week recovery period, except i just spent one of them back in hospital with heightened heart rate and atrial flutter :|

i've already given up coffee, and i think i'm going to give up alcohol also, at least till the end of the 12: the hospital stint wasn't alcohol-related but why not give everything a bit of a rest from that kind of extra beating?

and yet you tweet

i will never log off

3 weeks and no real cravings as such (I'm not a big drinker, really, but can be destructive when I do). Usual things are apparent for me: generally steadier mood, reading lots more, sleeping better, more continuity of thought.

I liked to get drunk when I was 19 or 20, particularly if I was at a show. Always beer — hard liquor never held much interest. But I got bored with that after a while, because I got more and more serious about writing and I absolutely could not write drunk. So by my mid-20s I was basically down to a beer or two here and there, usually with a meal. Then, in my early 30s, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and my doctor told me that if I drank alcohol, I should stop, because it would interfere with the oral medications I was taking (and still take). So I stopped. I've been "on the wagon" for about 15 years now, and while I'm sure I could go back to drinking if I wanted to — I'd be able to calculate the effect on my blood sugar and regulate accordingly — I don't actually miss it at all.

Ask me to give up caffeinated beverages (I chug unsweetened iced tea and Coke Zero by the gallon) and I'd have a much bigger problem.

Ive gone from heavy drinking 5+ days a week (I'm sure Ive talked about it before on ILX) to now doing light drinking 1 day a week, maybe 2 if I'm extra-good. I've still indulged a day here and there, and I'll continue to keep trying to reduce the amount and regularity.

What finally kicked me into gear was a sudden rapid increase in real bad LFTs. And in only 3 months, I've got them way down and closer to normal, so its working!

Xmas/summer hols is gonna be hard :/

NO one told me about the fecking sugar cravings though. I never had a sweet tooth. What is this fresh hell.

Go for it Trayce, taking care of yourself is a powerful thing to do

2 wks.

The sugar craving is real! I went from not having of a sweet tooth to requiring daily dessert, sometimes more than one!

I don't have a sweet tooth either but I remember when I didn't drink for several years and was focused on working out and eating well, I was obsessed with ice cream for the only time in my life.

from the old to what extent does your life revolve around alcohol? thread

used to be a daily drinker to a greater or lesser degree but i barely drink at all now

the anti-depressants i'm taking at the moment make drinking a lot less fun - if regular drinking feels like putting the output of your senses through a fuzz pedal and playing a glorious windmilling pete townshend power-chord, then drinking on anti-depressants feels like fumbling a jazz chord and getting drenched in pints of piss hurled by an angry audience

― for sale: clown shoes, never worn (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 10 August 2017 13:27 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

two years on from that post and i'm now off the antidepressants but i barely drink at all - i guess i just fell out of the habit and, since my wife barely drinks and i have a 15-month-old daughter whose sleeping schedule doesn't lend itself well to managing hangovers, i've never picked it back up again and i'm on the wagon by default ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Habit is a powerful force huh. Well, I’m on the wagon tonight in solidarity with y’all.

Sounds like a better place than 2 years ago, BG

4 weeks in, Friday night booze introspection: when I'm drinking, Fridays are when I have a few beers and sit about eating and listening to music. Without the booze, I'm more inclined to let the evening drift and don't have the same urge to get myself 'up' for it and am way less sociable (just ask my wife) - to the point where I can't really separate the sociability and the booze and I wonder if that part of my personality is really just the booze. Like, I can't face social occasions without the thought of drinking.

Short version: I worry about becoming a dullard.

i quit about a decade ago and have brief dalliances every now and again but have mostly sworn off alcohol as the least interesting of drugs.

was working in clubs and bars and restaurants and got into the habit of loading up at the end of the night as it was generally free or cheap but had one-too-many nights of throwing up on the subway or ending up at the wrong house trying to get in or just generally being an asshole. grandfather died of drink and i have definite obsessive personality issues so it seemed better to err on the side of caution. I will have a beer if that's all there is to drink but I find everytime i have one drink, I have six. it's just not a good idea for me.

and don't worry about being a dullard; i find most people who think drink makes them interesting are ignoring that it's more of a depressant and that it is, in fact, suppressing your real personality which is undoubtedly more interesting than you on booze.

3wks in and found the post work conference drink hard to navigate. Prevalent "it would just be the one" thoughts as I stood at the bar. Managed to get a tonic water without anything harder but didn't stay long with everyone who was throwing stuff down and have had similar introspective time since then thinking about sociability. Hard to come to terms with realising that there's been two of me for so long one of which is an obnoxious boor. Thanks for the useful perspective ulysses.

5 weeks today, gonna go sell records in a bar all day long

ymmv with this tactic, but something i did early on while quitting, as i had to spend a lot of time at or near bars: I would start by approaching the bartender at a quiet moment with a fiver on the bar and saying "Hey, I'm really trying to quit drinking, can you make sure I only have a cranberry and soda in my hand all night?" Bartenders are people too, they tend to respect if you tell them up front what the deal is and tip them immediately.
Also: candy helps to deal with the oral fixation elements. I would go through a packet of tic-tacs a night for awhile.

yeah I am all about bitters and soda. I spend a fair amount of time in bars anyway and I went into this knowing that. My wife's still drinking as well, none of that seems to matter - proximity doesn't seem to be an issue thankfully.

I also read or heard something recently that reminded me that drinking increases dopamine production, which offers some insight into the behaviors of my ex who would drink compulsively if his ADHD was cut off from other strategies. It was a huge problem whenever he had "down" time with lower stimulation levels (like while visiting my family who are very quiet and good at parallel play like reading or playing music or doing hobbies at home). He was incapable of restfulness and incapable of being quiet.

I've been resting a lot in the past year, more than normal in my life. It's nice.

Z, I mentioned this somewhere upthread but I'll say it again because it was a big turning point in realizing that I was better off without alcohol. If I had a stressful day, I felt like I needed a drink to chill out. And that felt good. Over the years, especially after having kids, I noticed that it took less and less for me to feel like it was a stressful day. At some point it clicked that I was training myself to have bad days because I was rewarding myself for it.

I spent a few years trying to mitigate my drinking or only drink this much or at certain times, but the rules would alway erode and I would go back to drinking whenever I felt I needed it which was most nights. One of the best things about not drinking was ending the internal conversation about my drinking habits. "Have I had too much? Is it okay to have another? I won't drink tomorrow. Well, maybe one." The constant second guessing of myself was exhausting and I didn't realize it until I was done with it.

Yeah the intrusive thoughts/ocd-adjacent stuff is what makes meditation not a thing for me. I have had to do deep listening exercises in the past, and at best, I end up with cool creative ideas that I want to explore asap … even though we are supposed to keep listening/meditating for longer … and I end up feeling resentful unless I do a strategic polite exit.

In terms of the reward/relaxation thing … I take baths now. It’s really great in summer.

just dropping in to say I love my neurofeedback sessions, which also help with addictions. the book "The Body Keeps The Score" describes neurofeedback as "meditation on steroids" which is apparently what I need rn

At some point it clicked that I was training myself to have bad days because I was rewarding myself for it.

yes I appreciated that insight as well!

i haven't opened the us politics thread since november, does that count for anything?

solidarity to everybody here. i am 4 years completely sober, occasioned by a bad liver staging that scares the bejeezus out of me. i should be eating better too, but y'know. every morning i wake up and look in the mirror for signs of jaundice.

in the decade preceding the diagnosis, i don't think i ever drank more than a couple of (single) drinks per week. so, it was easy to move from that low frequency to zero. only regret is that i had is that i started getting into single malts just a bit before i quit, and i had to give away a cool library of scotches.

i guess this means i've been mostly-sober for 15+ years.

in my 20s, though, i had weird bouts with alcohol abuse and random-ass pills. nothing consistent, no pattern to speak of. big gaps between, and short in duration. usually started with whatever meds or booze were around, no preference. it was lazy and accretive; i'd have a little of this, which would lead me to a little more of this, and then some of that, and quite a bit of a third thing and all of a sudden i'd realize i was in a bad way and hadn't been straight for a couple of days, and i'd and stop for months in horror. this is when i posted on the board a lot, ca. 2000-2010. it's probably easy to tell. and it's easy to look back from middle age and say 'yeah, there was something self-destructive about my youth' in kind of a detached way. but actually it wasn't destructive per se, or explicitly suicidal/depressive. i think it was more like self-reduction. binging/purging of the mind.

as a young guy, i had too much noise in my head. somebody else might call it manic, anxious, neurotic... just a whole cluster of stuff that could be pathologized, if i didn't find that reductive and paternal. in retrospect, i'd call it 'electricity' or 'static' ... just an untamed brain that was always lurching from thing to thing. and i felt i could reduce it - and the exhaustion that came with recursive thought-patterns - with booze. this is what i was chasing when i was using: a cessation of internal distraction. it's why i used to like slow day-drinking with friends: i'd idle down to a pace that was closer to 'mindful' than during the rest of my life.

age and maturity (i hope) have brought, somewhat naturally, the same effect. the benefit is that age doesn't come with the same self-loathing.

when i was at my worst, having binge-y episodes that lasted a few days, with sober intervals of a few weeks, i thought of my life like an ekg pattern. sober sober sober sober, get high, feel low and repent, sober sober sober sober, repeat. i think my attitude at the time was that i should seek to extend the sober intervals. sometimes i felt that a big-enough drink would 'cure' me for a bit. but what i didn't consider, for a very long time, was that i had still committed to the rhythm. for every interval had some kind of end, n days in the future.

sometimes i felt that a big-enough drink would 'cure' me for a bit. but what i didn't consider, for a very long time, was that i had still committed to the rhythm. for every interval had some kind of end, n days in the future.

Other than two halves of (very nice) beer at the start of April, I'm still sober. I'm sort of letting myself off because it was a highly pressurised social situation and I eventually capitulated, five hours into the night, and didn't really drink the second half anyway. I know it's cheating, but I'm counting 114 days because, if anything, it affirmed my current course. How is everyone else doing?

If it's of any use, I listened to this yesterday and found it useful: https://maudsleylearningpodcast.buzzsprout.com/277019/episodes/16981498-e120-how-why-i-stopped-drinking

Friday was the anniversary of my liver transplant; at this point even if I wanted to drink I still wouldn't. It's become like a squared circle, like sprouting wings and flying. Just laughably logically impossible.

I had to have a very very difficult and potentially explosive conversation with a family member yesterday. She is also in the process of getting truly sober (I’ve got about 10 years but am just now ‘working a program’). We almost fell off the rails a couple of times but damn I am very glad that we both had the tools of sobriety. We kinda nailed it. It would have been a very different outcome if this were a couple of years ago.

I’ve had some slips, but they were useful and hell no I do not reset to Day 1. It’s MY wagon and I’ll drive it my way.

100% \m/

I dig that quincie and will be stealing it to pass off as my own. And good work, tobo. Stay strong.

Hit 7 months today. Being sober isn't getting old, so I'm going to stick with it. How are folks getting on?

starting a break as of yesterday, for multiple reasons (one is financial, NGL)

I thought sobriety would be dreary; it isn't.

Weedibles remain helpful because I still crave having a vice in my life. Need the option of SOME form of vacation from being me. I'm pretty exhausting (even from the outside - just ask my wife) and I just can't do it 24/7/365.

This September will be three years, still happy to be done with it.

nice! yeah ymp i feel the same about my edibles, also caffeine. i rarely even think about how i don't drink anymore.

Same here. I went stone cold sober for almost a year and I could feel myself calcifying into my father. My wife and therapist were both fine with me being CA sober. Everyone is happier that way.

She had a pretty high-end career and upper-class lifestyle but once she retired she made up for lost time and hit the bottles harder than most broke punkers I've seen. In ten years, she was dead from total liver collapse.

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, October 28, 2023 5:03 PM

Two years after posting this, I now know two people who drank themselves to death. #2 was one of my best friends - he passed about a month ago and I guess I'm still processing this. Haven't had anything to drink myself since and can't really consider it.

That’s brutal Elvis. I can’t imagine watching someone close to me do that to themselves but unfortunately it happens all the time. That makes no sense, esp to a non-addict, but there you go. Process as you find helpful and take as long as you need for yourself.

Oof. Relatable.

I don't love being all "here's how the topic relates to ME ME ME" all the time but. I will say that my liver and kidneys failing last year has turned out to have the silver lining of clarity.

Behavior modification sparked by a sharp, sudden, undeniably dire health collapse is an easier sell than a slow, incremental change in the probability of future hypothetical bad outcomes.

I don't recommend it, and I was very fortunate, but I do think sobriety has been relatively easy for me because of how close I came to the grave. The memory of the hospital ceiling is all I need as motivation; I don't know how good I'd be if I had to do it all on the church-basements-and-bad-coffee plan.

It sounds like having those experiences (much as they suck) may realize some benefit for you. Peace and strength to you and yours in any case.

Two years after posting this, I now know two people who drank themselves to death. #2 was one of my best friends - he passed about a month ago and I guess I'm still processing this. Haven't had anything to drink myself since and can't really consider it.

Update... I still had a couple of bottle of booze in the pantry that were leftover from a party a few years back. Yesterday I poured it all down the drain and recycled the bottles. I'm out.

If I knew how to post a clapping hands gif, I would do that here. Great work.

20 months without a drink tomorrow.

think it's been a little over 5 years. funny thing about it is i can't remember my last drink at all or when it was. no event or last straw, i just .. quit at some point. i like that.

i presume there was a last straw tbf

i doubt a last straw drink ever has a straw involved

Two years after posting this, I now know two people who drank themselves to death

JFC now it's three - this time a cousin. I didn't know him very well, mostly secondhand news about how far along his liver cirrhosis had gone.

That’s awful. Sorry ET. One of the worst aspects of problematic drinking is how socially acceptable it is and how easy it is, even encouraged, to drink too often/too much.

I’m struggling. Not so much with alcohol (3 years!), but sobriety in general. Still trying to figure out a diagnosis for my brain issues, but it’s probably bipolar 2. So i’ve been dialing down the weed and today is my last tiny dose of that and i’m done. Then I start cutting out coffee.

It’s like plugging one leak and another pops up. Sure i’ll stop drinking (starts smoking too much). Sure i’ll stop smoking (starts drinking coffee like crazy). Sure, i’ll cut back on that (starts buying CDs and comics faster than I can enjoy them). Sure, i’ll be more responsible with money (starts eating like a starved pig).

Why can’t I just fucking chill the fuck out?!?

These are not particularly creative suggestions, but exercise and some kind of serenity program (meditation) can be huge. But I hear you. I’ve settled into drinking massive amounts of coffee, to noone’s benefit. Caffeine can just be another tool to avoid dealing with whatever has led me to booze over the years.

I’m going to my first completely sober wedding tonight. Meaning there will be no booze at all (I’ve gone to many such events personally sober). I fear it will be super boring.

I hosted thanksgiving for 11. I told people it would be dry, except for two bottle of wine for toasting/at the table. Two of the guests were children. Four other guests (including me) were non-drinkers. One of the guests brought a cooler of unsolicited drinks. The five people who drank left evidence in the form of 24 (empty) cans of hard cider, 5 (empty) bottles of wine, and a large (empty) flug of port.

They also left a fish sauce-dipped lumpia seeping into the pages of a first edition Mailer, an unflushed, unwiped poop in my upstairs en suite bathroom, and dumped three vape cartridges in the mailbox. FFS.

Sigh, yeah. I need to get back on my bike. Some of my meds have been giving me ass troubles and the bicycle has not been much of an option.

I should try meditating again.

Meditating isn’t easy. Or I should say that it isn’t easy to feel like you’re getting results. The trick is to stick with it, with the understanding that there is no right or wrong way to do it and no right or wrong way to feel afterwards.

I do think it can pay off in helping to train your mind to pause and deal with difficult moments. And can be a nice way to clear your head first thing in the morning. As in, very first thing before you look at your phone or jump into the day’s unpredictability. But it requires discipline to do it every day and I am nowhere near perfect on that front.

Biking rules.

echoing all of that about meditation. i don't always do my morning meditation first thing but yeah it's a nice way to start the day. there isn't usually any kind of epiphany or anything for me in meditation (although it has happened!). it's more just about quieting my mind regularly. the other important part of it for me is spiritual, which can be there if you want it to be. the mind quieting and the spiritual experience combined make it something i look forward to. i get a feeling like my soul is in a hot tub. the accumulation and frequency of going there makes it easier to access that place when i really need it, which is pretty much all the time tbh.

i'm glad my daily edible habit doesn't impinge on me staying reasonably focused and doing the stuff i need to / want to do, because i sure look forward to being a little high while moving through daily activities. if it is a bit of an addiction, it's certainly a lot softer and more functional than alcohol was. i'm allowing it, even embracing it. caffeine is probably still the 'hardest' addiction i have left. no motivation at all to drop that one. it's less compulsive than it used to be probably. i'm fine with it for now. the only thing that might lead me to dial back weed / caffeine would be a budgetary decision, or some major health development i guess.

I’m pretty pissed about letting go of weed. Maybe I’ll come back to it? But right now I have to get my meds sorted and it’s too hard to tease out what’s doing what and what’s reacting with something else with meds while stoned. But maybe I can reintroduce it when things are settled with meds? But if i’m bipolar, that’s probably just bad and I need to be stone cold sober and I hate it. I gradually turn into my stoic grumpy father when i’m really sober and I HATE IT. I told my therapist I don’t like myself sober and as soon as I said it I thought “well, I guess that’s something to work on.”

This is lovely:

https://bsky.app/profile/windowseat.bsky.social/post/3mb5jw5qbnc2i

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy_W-oSvRSM

lovely indeed

killing the cardigan game. may he live for many years to come.

Hopkins OTM

Today, I have been a wagon passenger for two years. I don't think if it as an achievement, really. It doesn't take effort or vigilance.

It's just a long-ish series of days on which something didn't happen over and over again. I still have problems, but I keep not pouring wine on them. And the calendar keeps flipping on to new pages.

The state of mind I wanted was for that whole aisle in the grocery store to just be irrelevant. Like, I don't have a dog or a baby, so I don't need to think about not buying dog food or baby food. It's there but it's not for me.

I went to the Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick's Day Tour show here last night (long story), and one of the openers was some other Boston band called Haywire. 2/3 into the set the singer/yeller asked if anyone in the crowd was drinking (Dropkick Murphys, Chicago, St. Pat lead-up show ... ), and after the expected cheers announced that he himself was celebrating 11 months sober, stressing that he was not judging anyone else or their lifestyles, only describing his own personal journey with alcohol and imploring people to be careful with their choices. He said it a lot better than I described it, not preachy at all, but I was impressed all the same by his courage, imparting his road to sobriety to a punk rock crowd of 4000 at a sold out Boston Irish punk show.

Interesting. I imagine that's a very 2026 phenomenon and may not have made sense 25 years ago; audiences are different.

There is a lyric in the Jason Isbell song "Cover Me Up" - "I sobered up, and swore off that stuff, forever this time" - and evidently when he sings it live, audiences cheer that line. Which is interesting because it requires both knowledge of Isbell's personal life and complete conflation of him with the character in the song.

i am inclined to fully quit, there are so many places out there which serve mocktails and NA beer and in recent months when i've gone out, i've exclusively had those.

xpost Yeah, can attest it happens at his shows. It shows I think a yeah maybe relatively newfound degree of respect, empathy, support and acknowledgment from fans, who if stats bear out are themselves drinking less, and for sure know people drinking less or abstaining altogether.