Nudges from Nature

I nearly started drinking again this past weekend. It was almost by chance, and showed me how much socializing is tied to alcohol.  Or rather, how it doesn't have to be. I'm two months into an  experiment with sobriety . I'm quite lax about the whole thing. I'm not so much quitting alcohol as following my curiosity to know what a year without alcohol would be like. But I realized this past weekend, it's actually becoming quite important to me.  Saturday was an absolute gorgeous coastal California day.  Clear blue skies. 70 degrees. A respite from the generally cloudy and rainy winter season we've been having. It was the perfect day to get out. Take the kid to baseball practice. And...maybe...hang out with my wife and chance running into some other parents at the brewery nearby. My dilemma is this: I don't want to confine myself to the house and drop my social life because I'm not drinking. My social life is light as it is. Without alcohol, it's been

Somewhere toward the end of the 1980s and on the heels of a surprise rise up the Billboard charts, a hippie band from the '60s was finding a new generation of fans. I attended my first concert of theirs at an open air ampitheatre apparently designed just for them -- a time capsule back to the days of peace, love, and rock and roll. Intermingled with the requisite psychedelic-inspired tie-dyes and flower-power daisies was pervasive and instantly recognizable skull-and-roses symbolism that had become synonymous with the band. As a recently former English major, I had brushed upon the intertwined symbols before, but never in such concentrated numbers on blatant display.  The band held quite a bit of mystique for me that resulted in an expectation for a certain level of complexity in unraveling and interpreting the ever-present contradiction between the skulls and bones, roses and ribbons. There was none.  It was all right there on the surface. Skulls and roses. Death and mortality. Be

I managed the first temptation to abandon my experiment with sobriety by opting out of the situation all together. I was invited to a live concert at a favorite nearby music venue, and though the draw was considerable, I simply chose not to go and instead spend a quiet night at home. The second temptation afforded me no such option. The 49ers were facing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl and we had a small family gathering planned. Opportunities to get together with my mom and my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces are harder and harder to come by, and the passings of my dad and older sister in the past few years bring an increased appreciation and humility for their genuine rarity. I was committed to going. I was looking forward to it.  However, beer and football tend to go hand-in-hand, of course, and that wasn't lost on me.  But, I was surprisingly unencumbered by the thought of it. The absence of even the mildest of after-effects from alcohol have been overwhelmingly relieving and i

There's something sharper to my daily experiences since giving up alcohol a few weeks ago. Alcohol was a warm blanket. And now it's gone. The comfort of habit. The lure of the familiar faces at the wooden tables of the local brewery. The split-second "aw fuck it" decision to have another round, and another, and turn away from the compounding responsibilities of life. That's gone. Like Ebenezer standing in the snow, peering in envy through the window at the warm scene inside the meager home of the Cratchit family, sobriety has me standing in the cold. The effect is stark. The truth is the crisp chill is the reality. Alcohol just put a comforting layer between us. Over the years, the layer got thicker. It went from a thin throw to a down blanket with high fill power.  At some point, the whole thing got a bit wet. I was forced to abandon it. It's not unpleasant to be standing here, though adapting has me in a mild state of discomfort.  I seek new and more reliabl

Overall the experience of not drinking for the past six weeks has been overwhelmingly positive. Is the honeymoon period over? One thing is clear, I don't miss drinking. I don't miss the negative physical effects post-drinking, and even the warm buzz of a few beers -- there are other ways to enjoy the passage of time. But those things are all about the absence of alcohol -- the removal of drinking from the routine. What's left underneath?  This week my frustrations are running hot.  I'm less patient than usual. Irritability seems to be at a constant.  Enough time has passed where I suspect this is not due to any withdrawal symptoms. It's not due to the lagging effects of stopping alcohol consumption. I'm past that.  It's a "now what?" feeling.  I think it has something to do with a sharper, clearer picture of my own limitations.  Yes, the effects of stopping alcohol are overwhelmingly positive. The removal of those negative effects -- the hangovers,

I have been and continue to be motivated by this suspicion that giving up alcohol will prove to be a silver bullet for many, most, or even all my problems. It occupies a space in my mind like a skeleton key: Problem with work? Not drinking will solve it. Problem with a relationship? Not drinking will solve it. Problem with motivation? Not drinking will solve it. I know this is incredibly naive. Yet, I willingly relish in it. The social media algorithms have kicked in and my feeds are now flooded with testimonials from celebrities and influencers about the topic of giving up drinking. The soundbites are compelling.  "My life has changed."  "There's me before I stopped drinking, and there's me after." "My career was good. I stopped drinking and my career was great. Beyond my wildest dreams." The soundbites don't tell the whole story. Theyare statements that over-simplify the journey. Selective reminiscences.  One of the initial draws of my accide

In the decades that I've been calling myself a writer, I noticed a peculiar thing: the stories I told out loud would often not get written down. The more I talked about an idea, the less likely it would turn into words on a page. Even calling myself a “writer”, which seems to be rule #1 in all the writing advice books and columns, did not make me a better writer. It did not help me produce more work, better work, sell anything, or increase any real measure of success. Sobriety has been a parallel experience. The less I talk about it, the easier it seems to be to stay the course.  NOTE: As I mentioned in my first article about this , I’m not an alcoholic, so this perspective may be completely irrelevant to you if you are. Sharing seems to be a crucial component of the AA program. I’m explicitly and only sharing my personal experience at the moment in time. I've told precisely one person about my experiment, about my curiosity that 2024 might be a year without alcohol for me. And