Every phone is tapped and every person is the police.

A couple of years ago I had something of a revelation. It felt like a crossroads of sorts somehow. I hadn't been to a doctor in years and I went in because of a referral to see someone for depression. What I was told was not particularly surprising to me, I had high blood pressure, was overweight and in danger of pre-diabetes. Afterward I saw a nutritionist who stressed to me how serious all of this was. I think I understood, and I knew what I needed to do but I felt pushback in myself, I remember thinking something along the lines of 'But Godamnit I like hot dogs and beer!' in my mind defending the horrible unhealthy lifestyle that I had been living for the past few years. It was taking it's toll physically, I was 315 pounds, and sometimes I would feel winded walking. In general moving around was somewhat difficult and I always felt like I was carrying this extra cumbersome load. I knew I needed to make a change but it was hard. I feilt impossible even. But even though I didn't make the changes right after that I knew that changed needed to be made. About 3 months later I made my first real attempt at quitting drinking and made it almost a month. Something happened, I went back but I decided to give it another go and I did 90 days. It was like this for most of the year, and it took until the start of this year that I was finally able to go for a substantial amount of time, getting close to 8 months as of this writing.

I think in the process of doing it I realized that all those times I tried and failed were actually essential to me finally getting it to work. I also read about tips online, and one common thing repeated was keep going, get back on there, one day at a time. I actually kind of came up with my own mantra, keep hacking away at it. As time has gone by I've found more and more I simply don't want to feel that way anymore, I don't want to have the 8 hour hangovers, the scrounging around for every single last bit of change to buy the biggest, lowest quality vessel of beer I can get. Also the few times I did go back I didn't even feel that good. Just moving around and doing things was something of a chore. Things have improved significantly since then for me, I have a job I enjoy and in general have loads more energy then I ever had in the past. I think sometimes I might have saved my own life. I'm not really sure I'd still be here if I hadn't done something when I did. And although I can't say for sure I have my not drinking down for certain I'm feel like I'm heading in the right direction. I haven't yet gone to AA or any kind of program and I still might. Sometimes I am amazed at how long I've gone. I have dreams that I am back to my old ways that I somehow went astray. They scare me but then I wake up and realize they are wrong, and I'm exactly where I need to be right now.