Friday, January 3, 2020

Dry January

I’m taking the Dry January challenge this month. Dry January began in the UK in 2013 (Alcohol Change UK) and quickly gained a lot of traction around the world. In  2019, 4 million people participated.

I like to enjoy a few drinks before I go to bed. But it’s become a nightly habit, and that’s not good. So I’m going to take a month off. I do something  similar anyway, from time to time. I’ll take a few days off now and then, and sometimes a few weeks off, from my nightly alcohol. I end up going back to those nightly drinks because they relax me and help me get to sleep. It’s easy to overdo them.

It’s hard to say how long my Dry January will last. Might be 3 days, might be 3 weeks, might be 3 months. If I go 3 months without alcohol, I probably won’t go back to drinking it. That would make my doctor happy. The alcohol is thumping my liver and causing my liver enzymes to go higher than they should be. They’re not terribly high, just elevated, but getting them back in the normal range would be good. I guess.

Why don’t I just take sleeping pills? Because when I take sleeping pills, weird stuff happens. I do things during the night that I don’t remember doing. It’s like living with an invisible roommate. You see evidence of their activity but you never seen the roommate. Like I said, weird stuff.

My body is sort of built for alcohol. For one thing, I never get hangovers. Not ever. Not that I’m complaining. But it’s probably time to slow down, and maybe stop. I’m not sure how to cope with things I see on the news if I stay sober. I guess I’ll just quit watching the news. The nightly news is enough to drive anyone to drink. Someone should create a news website with nothing but good news stories. In fact, it appears someone has. It’s called the Good News Network. How about that!

It’s now the wee hours of the morning, a little past 1:30 AM. I should probably hit the sack now or I’ll end up sleeping till noon tomorrow. Goodnight, and good luck to all of us taking the challenge.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love it -- Good luck with your challenge --- I believe you would be successful with it -- I may try such a challenge with something a bit different --- not sure what yet. But thanks for the inspiration that we all could do something like this and support one another. Love the blog -- I would like to hear more about the Good News Network -- I think all of us need that to ring in the New Year 2020 !!!!! My best, LL

Anonymous said...

Quitting a full-blown jones is never easy, my man. Sometimes takes a hook, a scam, a gag that speaks to you. A talisman. Writing, for instance. Every time you feel like getting a snort you could writing the Derwood and Charles Adventure, as an example. This could be an opportunity.
Cheers!
CD