I was raised by my father and he had sworn off alcohol due to his father’s addiction to it, unfortunately he became addicted to other things like sugar and fast food. I wonder now looking back if my own journey with alcohol would’ve been different had my father partaken in happy hour’s and backyard beer-b-q’s (this is now a word), I’m guessing I would’ve just started drinking earlier than I did – I didn’t start until I was 17 and living on my own and even then I had no interest in drinking to the point of being “out of control.”
Fast forward 30 years and countless dollars and hours spent imbibing for all the typical reasons (with thankfully no obvious major health issues as a result of ingesting a known neurotoxin) the more often than not attractively packaged as humanities panacea; the all too familiar ethanol chemical known by quite a few names – I think “spirits” may still oddly be my favorite – alcohol…I have bid farewell to this part of my life.
After having several periods of sobriety over the last three decades, the past 6 months saw a significant shift in my outlook regarding my self care (and the care of my loved ones), namely around what I was putting in my very finite body. Cognitive functioning and simple clarity of mind has become so much more important to me as I age as well as overall functioning and clarity and simply put, there’s just no more room for poisons to enter my being – at least not the ones I can control (go figure, for all the time spent drinking seems I was “out of control” after all!)
A couple years ago during a period of abstinence I found the amazing Women For Sobriety group and their New Life Program which was the beginning of a turn in what would lead to my determining there is no place in my life for numbing, harming, or otherwise engaging in an activity that would ultimately be my undoing (I can think of MANY other more positive ways to exit life, can’t you?!?), and more recently I came across the Reframe app and have also joined that community along with returning to WFS since the two groups have some differences and features singular to each.
Today’s topic is a big one for many. Do you need a prompt for examining the role alcohol plays in your life? Maybe, just maybe, you’re not a consumer – it’s rare but few have escaped the incessant marketing evils that have destroyed many a life for all the “good” and various iterations of ethanol that have been brought to market. Here’s the prompt: What could actually serve you better than drinking?
Do that instead.
TimeSpaceOne 