It’s no secret to those who know me that I decided to quit drinking for 1 year, beginning on August 16, 2023.
For context, between August 2022 – August 2023, I was consuming on average 45 standard units per week, equivalent to 6.5 beers per day, every single day.
My Drinking History
It’s also no secret that since turning 21, I’ve always had a preference for drinking. What that meant in practice the last 10 years of my life:
For 1-2 years consecutively between 2015-2017, 45 drinks per week.
As I made progress in therapy and with medication management, for years consecutively, 15 or fewer drinks per week as per the American Medical Association’s upper limit for men.
For at least one if not two of those years consecutively (2018-early 2020), naturally without effort, 7 or fewer drinks per week with median and mean of 3.
From mid-2020 to mid-2021, creeping slowly back to 15, then 20, then 30 drinks per week.
As I became more and more concerned about my drinking and as I switched psychiatrists while continuing to work with my psychologist, I was able to bring my drinking back under control to 15 or fewer per week with median and mean of 7.
Between August 2022 and August 2023, I dove straight back into 45 drinks per week.
Post-Sobriety
On August 16, 2024, I will work with my primary care doctor and my psychologist to create a plan to titrate alcohol back into my life. I will circulate that plan amongst the stakeholders in my no-drinking journey, which will include the many loved ones who have supported me in my sobriety, from family to coworkers to comrades to childhood friends.
When I’m not busy feeling like an autistic piece of shit, I sometimes feel like I possess the glibness of a narcissistic sociopath, so let’s put it to the test and see if I can gaslight each of my stakeholders into agreeing to let me drink again. I will need to, because if a single loved one is not happy with my plan, I will iterate until they are.
I view trust as a privilege in general (which implies trust is always unearned, seeing as if we’d earned the trust it wouldn’t really be trust anymore, it’d be ontological).
On the matter of my future with alcohol, if any loved one is willing to remain in my life without the presence of alcohol, but is not willing to extend me their trust otherwise, then I will simply have to accept that I have no future with alcohol. I think objectivity is a fucking joke, so I’m subjected to my loved ones’ subjectivities. And as nice as it can be to have an occasional beer, I’d rather not die sad and alone.
Do you trust me?
You shouldn’t. Other than to my psychologist and to my physician, I have lied explicitly or by omission to every one of you since I returned from China.
I either denied or underplayed the extent to which I drank while I was in China. As an extra cherry-on-top “fuck you” to all of you, a few weeks after getting back I decided to have a champagne with one of you despite your urging me not to.
My premise before China had been that my promised goal is 0 drinks, and I will naturally be incentivized to keep that promise because I will always be transparent with the people to whom I made the promise, which means they will have full transparency of information to decide their preference or lack thereof toward our relationship.
That premise is violated the minute I stop being transparent.
Before China, folks already knew I’d had my lapses. My transparency made it a lot easier for me to stay sober.
During and after China, I stopped being transparent, and I’ve had to fight myself every single day, if not to stay sober, then to stay sane.
I sincerely apologize to all of you for lying to you this past two months.
Here is my delayed report:
Drinks since August 16, 2023 :: 30.5 total
Prior to China
[10] Sep 16: Kevin/Lydia wedding
[0.5] Oct 3: SEA → KEF flight
[1] Nov 20: SEA → SNA flight Thanksgiving
[1] Jan 28: SEA → SNA flight en route to China
Total: 12.5 drinks
China (Feb 2023)
[3] Feb ?: Dinner at family friend’s house
[0.5] Feb ?: Lunch at mom’s student reunion
[1] Feb ?: BBQ restaurant dinner with family friends
[1.5] Feb 20: AYCE buffet
[5] Feb 24: New year week dinner at family friend’s house
[3] Feb ?: New year week dinner with family friends
[3] Feb 27: Dinner at my friend’s house
Total: 17 drinks
After China
[1] Mar 26: Wine Bar
Total: 1 drink
Does it count?
I'll be asking for your feedback. I hate the “all or nothing” rule of zero-or-bust, and while I don’t hate the “on/off the wagon” model – and in fact I credit the fine gentlemen at Alcoholics Anonymous those first two weeks from Day 0 with giving me the strength and wisdom and humility to even begin this journey – I think that personally I have a hard time with that metric because, genuinely no disrespect intended, I may hate statistics but I’ve studied enough of it that I can’t convince myself that “Days since last accident” is a meaningful metric no matter how hard I’ve tried. My model is the closest that I've gotten to meaningful, what feels like sustainable, sobriety, so I have a strong incentive to blindly believe that my model is correct, and a strong incentive to not explore any alternatives.
Now that I am no longer hiding any information (to the extent you believe that’s true — I’m not going to give you the Jack Barsky bullshit of “this is the truth as I know it”; this is the truth as I’ve documented and now reported it, and while I would be surprised if any of you trusted me to not drink, I’ll be the one offended if any of you accuse me of either not having meticulous records or of telling a >1,000 wordcount lie), at least I can ask you for your feedback, so that I may improve my model to better serve myself, which ultimately must involve some measure of serving those of you who would give me your feedback.
I am sorry for lying.