The title says it all: I’ve stopped drinking.
I went all through high school and the first four years of college without drinking any alcohol at all. I didn’t start drinking alcohol until maybe halfway through getting my master’s degree.
It had a lot of fun elements. It was relaxing. It felt like it helped me sleep better. I really loved tasting different types of alcohol and was especially into beer (as evidenced by this blog).
In some ways, it felt like an ancient rite: people have been drinking beer since the dawn of civilization, wine for thousands of years, and spirits for at least the last few hundred years. Readers of Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses will know what I mean.
But over time I have discovered a number of things I don’t like about drinking. It’s expensive. It’s not great for my liver or kidneys. It causes me to eat more than I should. It dulls my senses and slows my reactions.
As an increasingly paranoid person in an increasingly dangerous world, there are other downsides, too. Having a few drinks robs me of my ability to help someone in an emergency, to drive a car on short notice, or even to carry something really heavy or sprint up a flight of stairs. Of course, I rarely need to do these things, but it’s nice to know that I can do them when called on. Not drinking feels like…being prepared. And I like being prepared.
We’ll see how it goes. I’ve given myself a year to try it out and see how I feel. If I like the results (on my organs and my wallet) then I’ll probably keep not drinking.
The beer blog will still continue for a little while: I’ve got quite a few tasty beers still queued up and just waiting to be posted about. I may be dry, but my website won’t be, at least not for a while.
Cheers.