Hi There Sean,
That was an awesome post - so profound and moving, congratulations, and keep on doing what you're doing.
As a matter of interest, when I try to stop or start something, one of my ways of doing that is to reinvent myself as a pretend instant expert on the subject...
You know, a 'fake it till you make it' kinda vibe. And it's actually amazing how quickly you can actually
build up quite a lot of knowledge, more than the average person, just be rooting around a bit.
So, to cut a long story short, that's what I've done with drinking - I'm on my 5th day of my new non-drinking life after my 50th birthday, by the way, and it's going well.
I've set up a web site where I'm planning on creating a 1-week course on how to give up booze - it's fun!
If you wanna check it out and give me some feedback, that would be amazing. http://goo.gl/9s8rWm
It's obviously far from finished and the 7-day course doesn't even exist yet but that's how I do things - I point-shoot-aim, if you know what I mean. I need to get something out there into the world very quickly or I lose interest.
Another thing I did in a similar way was set up a site on mind mapping, which is a little hobby of mine. And as part of that I created a mind map on how I lost a lot of weight pretty quickly. You can check out that post here in case it's of any interest http://goo.gl/nTdtOR . Cheers! |
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Day 60: Holeee shit! I never thought I could go this long without drinking. I remember thinking how difficult it was to go a few weeks. How everything felt like such a hurdle. Everything required drinking. Happy hours, fridays, weekends, sporting events, going out to dinner, having the house to myself - I had to do all of them with a drink in my hand. I use to feel like life wasn't fun without getting drunk.
It makes me think, what have I been hiding from? Part of me thinks the drinking I was doing was allowing me to escape, and not have to face some of the hardest things in my life. It allowed me to numb myself to the losses of my brother when he was 25 and my father when he was 58. Maybe I drank all those years because I didn't want to feel the feelings that were deep down. the sadness. Maybe it was easier to just mask those feelings. It was the easier way out to just drink, get drunk, be hungover and then drink again.
The irony is that I was dying in front of the people I love. I was masking dealing with the feelings of death and loss, with drinking - which in a sense was slowly killing me.
A big epiphany I had early on when i stopped drinking was that I was giving myself something very meaningful back. I was giving myself years to my life. Years in the future I will have with Adina (my wife) and Billy (my son). Those years will be priceless. I think of the moments I will have a chance to experience; my son's wedding, his children, to watch him grow up and raise a family of his own. To the trips Adina and I will take in retirement. Those are years I want to be around for. My decision not to drink goes beyond wanting to look good and lose weight. My decision not to drink is deeper. It's about finding myself, dealing with the hard stuff and allowing those emotions to come to the surface so that I can be at peace with them. And it's about protecting the time I have with my family in the future.
I am so proud to have gone 60 days. This started as a 30 day challenge, but there is no denying how great I feel. I am now extending this journey through 90 days, through September. I owe it to myself and to all the people around me that I love and that love me back to keep this going. |
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Updated Obstacles:
Sacramento (CHECK)
Rocca BBQ (CHECK)
Giants game with work team (CHECK)
NYC trip (CHECK)
Cardinals games |
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Day 58: Something has become very clear to me in the last couple of days. By getting rid of drinking, which has always been the main hurdle in my life, I am setting the table to accomplish anything I want.
Eating better? Working out more? Getting six pack abs? Running a marathon? What do I want to accomplish in my life? -- The point is that I no longer have this giant boulder standing in my way. I feel like I moved it aside, or better yet that I rolled it off the cliff.
If I wanted to work out more, that would mean on top of the challenge of working out, I'd have the added layer of drinking making that infinitely harder, if not impossible. Walls that have stood in my way are no longer there, and that is refreshing.
I look forward to tackling the world. To setting and achieving ambitious goals, and to being a role model for my son. And I look forward to doing all of that not being shackled by addiction. |
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