1000 Days
1000 days ago I woke up with a slight headache after having put away a bottle of wine the night before. It was an expensive bottle of wine, it was a weeknight, and it wasn’t a particularly joyous or celebratory occasion. I didn’t misbehave and I have clear memories of going to bed, but as I drank my morning coffee and considered what kind of example I was setting for my children, I realized that alcohol was no longer serving me so I decided to stop. No drama. No rehab. No prayers or chips. I simply unsubscribed.
This isn’t a story about a fall from grace because of booze. If you’re expecting to find that, look elsewhere, the Internet is littered with those stories. I made a lot of money, I built some successful companies, I married a beautiful woman, I traveled the world, I fathered two beautiful daughters, I found religion, I left religion. Nothing tragic happened because I drank alcohol.
The very first drink I ever had was when I was 6. My dad had come back from jogging in the woods behind our apartment. Hot and exhausted he drank a beer. I wanted to be like him and he let me take the very tiniest of sips. Most likely it was all backwash, but I do remember like most little boys that I wanted to be like him.
When I was 9 a scorpion discovered my foot entering it’s home in my shoe. I screamed. My mom put a steak on it and my dad gave me a sip of scotch to numb the pain. The scotch did it’s job and I went from feeling frightened to feeling comfortable. No elation, no slurring words, just comfortable, and that word “comfortable” describes well my relationship with alcohol. Throughout most of my adult life I drank at home after the sun went down to ease my anxieties about life and business.
When I turned 12 I was allowed to have a little bit of Manischewitz wine at our Passover seder. It made the songs a little sillier and more fun.
In college the fraternity parties and late nights in the dorm supported excessive drinking that felt normal because everybody was doing it. Sorority girls got drunk and made out with boys in the hallways. Fraternity boys broke things. Everybody had embarrassing drinking stories. It all seemed like normal foolish college behavior.
After college I built a startup that involved a lot of trade shows and a lot of entertaining. Drinking was par for the course. Making it rain for the whale clients we courted with shots, table service, and bottles of champagne felt normal. I was rich and young and it all felt like this was just what grownups did. From 2000–2005 a lot of the founders I knew were spending their riches going to Las Vegas, gambling, doing cocaine, and hiring prostitutes. By comparison my preference for a glass of wine and a good movie seemed pretty tame.
After I got married and had my first child, the picture of being at a bar didn’t fit into my premade view of good parenting, so I began drinking expensive wine at home. For years this is exactly what I did. It felt normal and I knew plenty of people who did the same.
Most of the time I drank within reason, 2, maybe 3 glasses of wine. Maybe a whole bottle if I started early or stayed up late. Occasionally I found myself opening a second bottle of wine. I justified my drinking by buying really expensive wine. I was a connoisseur not somebody who needed to drink. I never woke up with the shakes. I never had a morning drink. I never hid alcohol. I never drank at work. It seemed like I drank the way the commercials and print ads show people should drink. It all felt normal.
Every once in a long while I’d end up drunk enough while bar hopping or at a bachelor party that I woke up feeling a little embarrassed, but it wasn’t out of any particularly bad behavior, rather just out of embarrassment that I didn’t look like I was in control. Every once in awhile I realized half way as I drove home from dinner and I really shouldn’t be behind the wheel. I never got a DWI. I was never arrested. I never crashed my car. I got pulled over but was never asked to walk the line, the police didn’t feel I was drunk, that only further justified my sense of self control.
So 1000 days ago like a good technologist, over that coffee, I installed an app called days to count how long I’d go without drinking. It was an experiment not a commitment. If I didn’t like it I could always go back.
I didn’t quit drinking, I just didn’t drink. To me there’s a big difference. It’s the difference between swearing you’ll go to the gym on January 1st to lose the holiday weight versus just going because it’s good for you and you know you’ll live longer because of it. It’s the difference between deciding to have a hamburger or not. It’s just an inconsequential part of the day. No thanks, I’ll have the salad for lunch.
The first day I felt fine. The first week I felt great. After a few months I’d lost 10 lbs. After 6 months I’d lost 30. Somehow I’d gotten fat from the wine.
The first time I went to a party I felt awkward. The first time I went to a bar I felt out of place. After about a year I stopped feeling awkward. After about two years I forgot that drinking a diet coke at dinner was new. I lost some friends but in truth they were just people who enjoyed drinking with me. I replaced the missing sugar with Ben & Jerry’s and I replaced the friends with greater self respect.
Every once in awhile somebody is amazed that I don’t drink or they marvel that I really truly don’t drink ever. They comment that I’m drinking kombucha or tea and how uncomfortable I must be. There is usually a sense of longing or sadness behind those comments. I feel sad for those people because I think they are actually the ones who are uncomfortable.
I’d be lying if I still don’t occasionally miss the feeling of instant calm but I definitely don’t miss the hangovers and I hope that my children will grow up seeing alcohol as something that doesn’t belong in their home. Whenever I do miss it, I drink a kombucha or take a walk and remind myself that you just don’t meet many elderly heavy drinkers because most heavy drinkers don’t make it to old age.
I don’t drink alcohol anymore. Most of the time I’m pretty happy about that. I make better business decisions. I’m better at pitching my company. I’m better at recruiting employees. I’m better at fathering my children. I’m a better friend and son. I’m better at most things because I’m more present and aware. I’m still far from perfect though.
Will I continue not to drink? I don’t know. I don’t really think about it like that. I don’t think about it like a life commitment or a religion.
So why write this? Am I hoping you’ll share it with a million people and pat me on the back?
No. I’m writing this because I’m proud of my own 1000 choices, it’s been good for me. I started counting at 1 and it’s flown by. I’m writing this so that you’ll share it with that one person who needs an example that not drinking is entirely possible and perfectly normal. Maybe that person is you, or maybe not.
I’m writing this so that maybe one single person will consider two things:
- This guy used to be a heavy drinker and stopped.
- If you don’t want to drink anymore, you can stop too. Simply unsubscribe.
