Where should I start, well 7 months as now pass without an alcoholic drink? How do I feel? Never felt clearer with my life goals and decisions.
Since a young age, I have always been involved in alcohol-related environments. My father was an alcoholic, drinking was the norm back then, most households in the village had their little reserve of wine.
We are looking back around 30 years now, since then most of the heavy drinkers pass away due to alcohol-related diseases or have serious health conditions.
So why my decision to stop drinking? Well, looking back into my life, I start drinking alcoholic drinks when I was around 14 years old.
Since then alcohol has always been part of most my social gatherings, parties, lunches, reaching a point where I felt that I could use any event as an excuse to consume alcohol.
Some of the biggest decisions I made in my life have been done with the influence of alcohol, some went ok but mostly ended not so great.
Since a few years back I had the gut feeling that I had to stop drinking alcohol someday. So when my marriage was on the rocks, this was the first time that I decided to stop drinking.
This because I was about to make some big decisions in my life and I wanted to make it with 100% assurance that the decisions come from me without any kind of influence.
So, I stop drinking o month before I got divorced, went through a rough patch of my life but with a clear mind every minute. Every decision I made was done totally focused.
But I only lasted 2 months without drinking. Due to the influence of people close to me at the habit of drinking come back. And soon I was out and about getting heavily drunk most weekends. This lasted for around 6 months.
It was like I was back to my twenties, but this was starting having a big effect on my life as I expected. My self-esteem was really down, my standards of work were declining, and my free time was being wasted or drinking or recovering from drinking.
I knew that I had to spot drinking completely to get to my peak performance. So after another heavy drinking weekend, I remember going to work on Monday at 1 pm and still had a massive hangover, it was then that I said enough is enough.
Since that weekend I did not drink an alcoholic drink, I close down myself from people that could influence me to drink, stop going out every weekend and have the will to say “short term pain, long term pleasure” when I feel like I could use a drink.
I focus now on making more use of my time, spending with the kids, going to the gym, writing on this blog reading. Also, my career is going great, back on track with a good future on the horizon.
Not easy to keep away from alcohol especially in Xmas, when all the parties are happening, but calm seas do not make skilled sailors, and I shall pass this challenge without a drink of alcohol.
People always questioning why I don’t drink, they tell me I can have only when glass its nothing wrong with that. But in the end, it is my life and if I feel i should not be drinking at all, for the time being, that’s what I’m gonna do.
So, if you thinking in quitting alcohol, well it is not easy, but if you have the right mindset and know why you should stop, this can give at least the first attempt to stop drinking alcohol. Always think in the long term, if you keep drinking for the next 30 years, what your life is gonna look like. Or how you life is gonna be in 30 years without drinking, food for thought.
