Today marks the 30th day that I have refrained from drinking alcohol.

My wife and I started something years ago where we would come together after work and have a few drinks and chat about our day. It worked well for those years as we both enjoyed our time together after a hard days work. It gave us a platform for open communication and as you know, communication is a major element in a successful marriage. I even built a makeshift Tiki Bar in the garage at our last house.

As the years went by I noticed that the amount of alcohol had increased. For me it was a delicious IPA (India Pale Ale), and for my lovely bride it was Chardonnay. We were drinking after work and of course on the weekends. As the Pandemic came around we both found ourselves drinking even more and I have the memories of hangovers that lasted the whole day to prove it.

As we retired we started getting rid of a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t need in our retirement home, but the one thing we didn’t get rid of was our drinking habits. The house was sold and we drove across the country from the West Coast to the East Coast. Even during that 6 day journey we found ourselves drinking in each Hotel room we checked into after a long day of driving. I drank a six pack of beer while she drank a bottle of White Wine.

We settled into our new Retirement Home and never missed a beat with our drinking habits. It’s been a little over a year now since retirement and last month I found myself in deep thought about our current state of living. I had to ask the big question? Am I an alcoholic? I mean, it’s only beer.

I decided to conduct an experiment: If I could drink just two beers and cut myself off after that, then I have some type of control. Well, I failed miserably and found myself drinking ever more. So then I decided to conduct another experiment: If I could make it 3 days in a row without a drink then there may be some hope that I’m not an alcoholic. That experiment actually worked, but came along with a bit of suffering. My mind was constantly telling me that I needed a beer and the closer it got to 5:00 PM more difficult it became to not crack a beer. My body was shaking inside and bitterness, anger and even rage came over me at times. But I managed to push through those 3 days without taking even a sip of the poison. Meanwhile my lovely bride managed to cut down to just 2 glasses of wine per night.

I made it a whole 3 days without alcohol. What do I do now? Well, at that moment I decided that if I could make it 3 days, then I can make it 30 days.

There has been times of great anxiety during those 30 days, but it got better as each day passed. Today I feel wonderful. I started walking and working out and even created a Blog (this one) to share all of my thoughts. I am currently working on meditation and when I feel that I’m ready I will start taking Yoga classes once again.

Although I feel really good today about my conquest, I know that there will still be challenges ahead. It would be easy for me to say that I can make it a whole year without drinking or just saying that I will never drink again, but I know that would be foolish.

All my successes in life have involved taking baby steps to get there and, this too, needs to be carefully crafted into taking those same baby steps to arrive at where I want to be. Sober.