January Wet And Dry, Or, Saturday Morning at 9:05am

I can tell you exactly the point where drinking less alcohol did it for me: no more two days/week, no more than a total of four glasses/week. The tipping point. Right there I started sleeping better, I could let a night or two go by without missing it, and, funnily enough, more than two glasses made me feel terrible.

As long-time readers know, I’ve been cutting back on drinking for many years. Fifteen, to be precise. I don’t want to stop altogether, but have been determined to retool a bad habit that was this close to disaster. At one point I drank 2-3 glasses of wine a night. In retrospect, yikes. It hasn’t been easy; I’ve been pretty bull-headed.

And here we are.

It’s pouring rain in California, as I’m sure you’ve all seen in the news or out your windows. We’ve escaped the flooding at my house, although on December 31st we drove to San Francisco and back, not realizing that 8 determined inches of water was about to fall on the roads. We didn’t get stuck, we didn’t spin out, but we did drive through an intersection where fallen leaves had clogged the storm drains. The spray roared and the force of the water bent our license plate, cresting just over the hood of the car.

That’s kind of how my drinking was. When your license plate bends, vow to be more careful, grateful you didn’t float down the river. Thank you for the metaphor, injured nature.

I am also, in the midst of this Pineapple Express, joining Dry January. Not that I over-indulged for the holidays, just that in my experience I emerge from the practice even less tied to drinking than before. Which is my aim. To enjoy 20-30 year old California cabernets without damage. I understand this means alcohol is part of my life and affects me. I accept that.

I know some of you embrace sobriety. I support you. Some of you may be struggling, I feel you. For anyone who is always happier with highly cognitive moderation, in everything from sugar to savasana, and is also a little bull-headed, know that it’s possible. The steps are just more like eleventy-sixty-four and three-quarters than twelve.

All comments in support of all efforts toward well-being welcome. I hope you are safe and warm, if not necessarily dry. Have a wonderful weekend.

(If you want to read past posts about alcohol in my life, type “alcohol” into that little search box on the left and I think you’ll find most of them. I send good thoughts for your well-being.)