Not a Drop, Day 1826

I've thought a lot about whether I should even write this and, subsequently, a lot about this disjointed, non sequitur blog in general.  I've pondered what five years means, and what five years does not mean.  I've ruminated how unscripted events could have come together to reach 1826 days after day 1 with a different outcome and the possibility I could have been in a different place.
Perhaps, I should be thinking about the future.

"It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past." - Jim Bishop

I've been reading about various individuals' experiences in quitting drinking.  These weren't the writings in some of the excellent books on the subject like Neil Steinberg's Drunkard.  These are the average Jane and Joe writing about quitting drinking or cutting back.   
I'm not sure it is healthy to perpetually (or for years) write about the topic.  If it remains something constantly at the forefront, then the "new normal" won't ever have been achieved - and I believe strongly that a new normal is required.  Years writing about one subject also seems painfully trite.  To be fair, years writing about anything and everything might seem almost manic.  If nothing else, writing about anything and everything is a good way to remain contentedly anonymous.  Anonymity is highly underrated.
I'll separate the experience from quitting from what is written as a "how-to."  The change can be difficult, so no fault for attempts to help.  But, any one way to stop will likely only work for a very small amount of people.  Lay-person or even uninformed expert advice runs the risk of being unhelpful.  Some would almost be funny if they were simultaneously so dangerous.

The 2-year milestone seems almost delusionally real.  2012 in general was an odd year.  The old house had sold the previous fall;  the new house was still new enough that it was a natural euphoria, although that exhilaration was tempering.  The four worst months of my career had been survived - "efficiency experts" are the two most terrifying words in the corporate language.
But, reaching two years felt real, maybe not as normal as I wanted it to then, but real enough.

One writer talked about a milestone I hadn't ever previously thought about.  She wrote about approaching a point where more of her life was spent not drinking, than drinking.  I'm not really sure where that mark would be for me, since I'm not really sure where to start the time zero point.  After the first time I drank, it was a looooonnnnggggg time before I could even smell booze again without getting queezy.  That evocative saccharin scent of schnapps probably remains to this day.  Some rough estimations suggest I'm probably near the half-way point as well.  It was interesting to contemplate the half life as a milestone.  It was also a little depressing, so much of that time was spent in infancy through childhood.

I didn't think much about the 3-year time point.  Year 3 was a phantasmagoria, everyone takes a twisted contorted path to where they are, but where we are is just another stop in twisted contorted path to where we will be.
The lessons from year 3 demonstrated that even though more of life was under control, much of it remained unchained.

There were several people writing about the slip-ups as much as any successes, or about xx drinks as a positive (implying less than normal).  There is empathy in reading these; because there has to be.  A few of these alternate between brief periods of well-written prose discussing the repeated early efforts of quitting, with long periods without postings.  The saddest blogs are the ones that start out sincere and intense, but are very brief.  The end writes a final assumed chapter of failure.

Reaching 4 years was as much about the break I took from the online writing for other writing I wanted to do.  This points to the ongoing normalcy of not drinking.  Which leads to this 5-year posting; very possibly my last dedicated to the subject.
The last year has become normal in a way I previously would have had a hard time imagining.

One other writer calculates the time regained by not drinking.  The amount of time was pretty fantastic in his/her case (I couldn't tell from the blog which sex the author was).  In my own case, the number may be surprising only in the aggregate of five years.  I still squander much of that time in front of the TV, but enough of it is spent doing things that are fulfilling in a very real sense.

I've been putting fingers to keyboard, thoughts to digits, over the last few weeks as I knew this 5-year milestone was imminent.  In that same time, my Father died.  This was not unexpected as he was diagnosed with what almost assuredly was a terminal illness early in the year.  But it was unexpected as the end seemed to come very quickly; maybe it always does.  I can't image going through the emotional roller coaster of my Dad's passing with the mental distention of alcohol hanging over me.
Over the last several months, I got to know my dad in way that I hadn't previously.  I believe he would have said the same about me.  I don't know if we become omniscient in death.  But if we do, then I am slightly comforted in knowing that I am more honestly the person he knew.

There are still times I miss it a little bit but in the same way as I miss lots of things that are gone forever.
"Once you experience nostalgia, the thing you are nostalgic about is long dead." - Jen
Alcohol is the great equalizer for introverts in an extroverted world.  Where the last five years has brought me to is caring much less about that extroverted world.

Quitting drinking has enabled so many of the other positive changes over the past years that any negatives seem more and more like unnecessary footnotes:
I have never, ever - even once - woken up on a Saturday morning and wished I had a hangover!  Never...
I already touched on the time I've taken back by stopping, but the positive repercussions of this shouldn't be understated.  Time is one of the few fixed commodities in life.  I don't know if I'll die tomorrow or 60 years from now, but my time on the earth is absolutely fixed.  This has become unquestionably personal recently.
Much like time, the amount of money I would have spent on various consumable bottled liquids is quite real.  On the small scale this isn't much, but aggregated over five years (and more in the future) it amounts to real money.  Add in occasional questionable purchases from Amazon or Ebay after drinking and the number gets frighteningly larger.
I'm writing more, even self-published my book.  Yeah, it was excessively simple and one chapter is even about a guy who quits drinking.  But, this is just one example (of many) of something which probably never would have happened without the changes over the last five years.
Once I unlearned some of my bad habits, my time away from work is infinitely better.  No more do I look forward to vacation as a time to cope and unwind.  Yet, I probably need vacation more now than ever; I crave it because it is now my own time.  It doesn't belong to something else altogether.

I look forward to mornings now.  I like waking early and having time, sometimes just minutes and other times hours, quiet contemplative time to stand back and look at everything with some clarity.  Early morning with a book is better than late night with a glass.

Arbitary though it may be, five years does seem like a milestone.  As a reminder of all the changes over the last five years, I got a tattoo of a broken bottle.  Unlearning the habit of booze was only one slow, deliberate life change, but it was an enabling change.  The permanence of the tattoo has significance.  There is also significance in the placement on my upper arm where few others will ever see it (you'll never see me in a wife-beater and I'm not a lay-around-the-beach kind of person).

When Steve was giving me the tattoo, we were talking about why I made the design that I did and he asked me if I had quit drinking.  After responding positively, he paused and looked up at me, "How do you sleep at night?"
"Much better ... much better."

The bottles continue breaking.