Written once or twice in my days blogging about my relationship to alcohol, which is generally poor, ruined a chunk of my 30s to date, and was definitely one input into my marriage ending.
You might ask yourself: When you blog about all this other shit (2,500+ posts) and drinking is clearly such a big portion of your existence, why don’t you write about it more?
Short answer would be shame.
I like the process of drinking, and I like detaching myself from reality, and I like conversations I sometimes get into of a random nature with people totally different from me when I drink. All that stuff is cool to me, broadly speaking.
At the same time, it’s gotten to be too much.
I am going to try and write this next section and not sound like I am assigning scapegoats, but it may sound that way, and if so, I apologize.
Around September 2018
Not that you need all this history, but 2015 was a shitty year for me, 2016 was better financially but my marriage was shaky in parts, 2017 I got divorced, 2018 was mostly good financially + with a new person, etc. The whole time I had been freelance, which is big-time up and down money-wise, especially if you ain’t no hustle guy. I can be a hustle guy, but as noted above, sometimes I just want to drink and talk to people.
So within about six days in September 2018, I did two things: (1) I started a basically full-time job at this agency and (2) I moved in with a woman again. So on (1), I hadn’t worked consistently out of an office for three years. On (2), you know, I’ve lived with chicks twice before but now I was 37 or something and it had a different tenor.
Now look, at this point I already knew I had a problem with drinking in swaths. I had been to AA a couple of times. Ala-Non a couple of times. In 2010-2011, I had quit for like six, eight months at a time here and there. I have a couple of really bad nights on my ledger between 2010 and 2015, some of which I can remember by location or event. Ask me or six other people about the Cheesemonger Festival, for example. (Or don’t.)
Anyway, I start this job and move in with my girlfriend.
My girlfriend at the time was 29, about to be 30. As a result, most of her friends were same age. You end up drawing a lot of comparisons between yourself then and them now, including like this poker game I used to play in Queens when I was 30 … anyway, long, self-indulgent bullshit and I won’t go that way.
Most of the employees at this agency were 27/28, too. So it felt for a minute like my whole world was 27-30 year-olds, and I was constantly reminded of shit I should have done, boxes I should have been checking and didn’t, etc.
I started to spiral a little bit.
I was actually going to two therapists for a second in there (different styles) and people who knew that used to joke with me about it sometimes.
Still, problem was, I was still drinking … like sometimes at the agency, I wouldn’t have meetings after 9:50am, so I’d get a beer or two with lunch. Even though I was back living with someone and didn’t want to screw it up, I’d still do too much on the weekends too.
That’s been up and down since — waves, basically. But I gained weight in that span, even though I had done a good job losing weight in 2016-2017, so that’s something that started to bother/affect me. I had a couple of nights I’d take back. Pissed my pants once, as recounted here. Actually might be more than once, but it’s usually elevator-stalled situations and not just outright urination on self. Thankful for that.
What triggers all this?
You want me to explain addictive personalities in a blog post that ultimately 107 people will read? I cannot do that for you, good sir. (Or madam.) I can tell you that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but rather connection. I do believe that. (If you want to Google the definition of “irony,” I wrote that blog post in a bar.) I feel like life changes a lot between 28 and 35 — that’s also the theme of this podcast I’ve been doing — and, while I was married in some of that span of time, I just think life and connection and my friends got away from me, and my sadness around that + lack of a truly cemented career arc + genetic predisposition to addiction = where I am at. So that’s the “tea” on me.
So Lent 2020?
Give up drinking + AA meetings + keep on the general straight and narrow for 40 days and hopefully beyond. Let’s see how it goes.
Send support and all that right here.
One of the dangers in Western Society- however one defines that phrase- is comparison. We are taught from childhood that material success is the yardstick of achievement.
Catch is , there’s always someone better then you at the materialism game. When there’s a kid who earned a million dollars before his 10th birthday, ultimately everyone falls short at this game. Discontent is the result, followed by consumption of alcohol/ weed/percocet/etc.
What’s interesting is people interviewed on their deathbeds don’t value more money or hours at work /school . They don’t value trophies or material metrics or that time they killed a quarterly sales metric. They care about the things you can’t buy-health, family , and life experiences.
It’s unfortunate our society elevates cold spreadsheets over warm hugs. Maybe if materially successful hustler valued their kids and families more then an extra basis point on the annual report, we’d all be a better society for it.
Hmmmm. There’s a lot here, Ted. I think connection/lack thereof does have a connection to alcoholism, but I don’t know that it’s as cut and dried as you write (or as I interpret your writing). I applaud/support your lent goals, and I’m here cheering for you as you work toward them. (And I’m not sure I get the “107 people” part. If we ever get around to that podcast, you can explain it to me!)