Day 1: Day One’s Are Easy.

It’s always easy to say “I’m never drinking again” after a night of drinking. Day 1’s are easy. Some friends and I celebrated the last night of drinking appropriately. Gross food, beers/seltzers/shots, and college football. Outside of a few stray snapchats that got sent out the night went off without a hitch. I arranged for rides to and from my brother-in-laws house to avoid any last second DUI’s (wouldn’t that be something one day before quitting drinking). I got home at a reasonable hour (9pm on a Saturday is more than reasonable). Drank some water and headed to bed, where I immediately sat up from the spins, headed to the bathroom, sat on the floor and proceeded to offer up my last offering to the porcelain throne. The consistency of it told me I hadn’t drank nearly enough water and I got it all out then went to bed.

“All your body is screaming for is water, food and sleep.”

I woke up this morning feeling great, I forgot how good at hangovers I am, I beat them! Until 10am when I came back down and was shaking and in desperate need of some food. Yes it’s easy to say “I’m never drinking again” the day after a rough night of drinking. All your body is screaming for is water, food and sleep. Lucky for me I have a family that allows me to watch football all day so I can hide how bad I feel by laying on the couch and watching RedZone cycle through all of the afternoon games at a pace that calms my ADHD.

“I’m past my athletic prime.”

Outside of giving my liver a break another big reason I’m going on this journey is to drop my weight. at 6’4″ I’ve always carried weight well. 340lbs is a lot of pounds and yet everyone comments “you carry it so well”. On top of the “empty” calories that you get while drinking, you pile on the gross food before during and after a night of drinking to get you back to zero and its easy to pile the pounds on quickly. I’ve been lucky with my health, but heading into my 40’s things are starting to squeak and rattle. I’m past my athletic prime as my brother-in-law gently reminded me last night. So sure why not take advantage of 365 days of no alcohol and drop as much weight as I can to feel as good as I can before I turn 40.

Again Day one’s are easy. Easy to promise yourself the world. Easy to forget what the future brings, the pitfalls, the temptations. Easy to walk away from alcohol when you feel so bad. I’m not a fool enough to think I’m going to cake walk through this, but I’m just dumb enough to believe it.