DougGuy
01-04-2018, 01:30 AM
On this day 2008, I parted ways with a beloved friend, a custom close to my heart, a dearly loved pastime that had become a way of life, I gave up drinking.
Of all the vices I carried and tried, none were as comforting or as meaningful as drinking. I had gotten SO good at doing things so that they would not come between me and my favorite habit, I went WELL out of my way to be careful driving, I was very practiced at it and very good at it, I never wrecked, ran off the road, or ran anybody else off the road, and I pushed the envelope as long and as hard as I could. I was a perfectly functional alcoholic. I could do everything just fine, I just did it with a certain amount of alcohol in my system.
I knew some day that something was going to happen to cause me to quit, but try as I might I just couldn't think of what it might be that would have this much influence over me to make me commit to a decision like that.
In the end, the very thing that let me drink for as long as I did without any major problems or catastrophes from it, was the very thing that allowed me to quit and walk away without ever turning back. I had worn it out. Like a dog with a snake between his teeth, shaking his head until there is NO life left in the snake, I had completely gone through the challenge, there was none left anymore, I had become bored with drinking. I had pretty much done everything I intended to do.
On this day in 2008, I got pulled over for doing 70 in a 35, the officer ran me in, when I refused to blow he gave me a phone book to call an attorney, after about 20mins I realized the phone book was 19yrs old, and that him being a member of the most entrenched and organized crime family on the Atlantic Seaboard, the North Carolina Highway Patrol, there was nothing I could do or say was going to make any difference anyway so I let him do his thing.
When I got out of jail the next morning, I hitched a ride to my van and luckily it was still sitting on the side of the road untouched from the day before. I got in, saw that there was still an ice cold 6 pack sitting there, I slid the side door open and rolled it out into the ditch, and drove away. The decision was not a hard one to make, it was an automatic decision.
It was funny how I never had any doubts that I was done once and for all, I never worried about going back, I was never really tempted to drink so much as even a beer.
If someone would have told me then, how much I would enjoy sobriety now, I would have confidently informed them just how full of **** they were. Sometimes it feels awful good to be wrong.
Happy 2018 fellas, may your joys out weigh your sorrows, may your blessings be many.
Of all the vices I carried and tried, none were as comforting or as meaningful as drinking. I had gotten SO good at doing things so that they would not come between me and my favorite habit, I went WELL out of my way to be careful driving, I was very practiced at it and very good at it, I never wrecked, ran off the road, or ran anybody else off the road, and I pushed the envelope as long and as hard as I could. I was a perfectly functional alcoholic. I could do everything just fine, I just did it with a certain amount of alcohol in my system.
I knew some day that something was going to happen to cause me to quit, but try as I might I just couldn't think of what it might be that would have this much influence over me to make me commit to a decision like that.
In the end, the very thing that let me drink for as long as I did without any major problems or catastrophes from it, was the very thing that allowed me to quit and walk away without ever turning back. I had worn it out. Like a dog with a snake between his teeth, shaking his head until there is NO life left in the snake, I had completely gone through the challenge, there was none left anymore, I had become bored with drinking. I had pretty much done everything I intended to do.
On this day in 2008, I got pulled over for doing 70 in a 35, the officer ran me in, when I refused to blow he gave me a phone book to call an attorney, after about 20mins I realized the phone book was 19yrs old, and that him being a member of the most entrenched and organized crime family on the Atlantic Seaboard, the North Carolina Highway Patrol, there was nothing I could do or say was going to make any difference anyway so I let him do his thing.
When I got out of jail the next morning, I hitched a ride to my van and luckily it was still sitting on the side of the road untouched from the day before. I got in, saw that there was still an ice cold 6 pack sitting there, I slid the side door open and rolled it out into the ditch, and drove away. The decision was not a hard one to make, it was an automatic decision.
It was funny how I never had any doubts that I was done once and for all, I never worried about going back, I was never really tempted to drink so much as even a beer.
If someone would have told me then, how much I would enjoy sobriety now, I would have confidently informed them just how full of **** they were. Sometimes it feels awful good to be wrong.
Happy 2018 fellas, may your joys out weigh your sorrows, may your blessings be many.