After an 11-year drinking habit, I stopped on March 18, 1997. Since that time, I’ve never made a big deal out of the fact that I don’t drink anymore. Today, on the eighth anniversary, I want to blog about it.
I clearly remember the night I made the decision. It was a few weeks after I’d finished reading Drinking: A Love Story, by the late Caroline Knapp. Ironically, I had a drink in my hand the entire time I was reading it. Something in me resonated as she described how the love of alcohol ruined relationships and became the great love of her life.
When I was drinking, I thought I was the only one in the world who knew how it felt to be addicted. Oh, woe is me, I used to think. Self-pity reigned, and I pointed fingers at everyone but the person in the mirror. While reading Knapp’s book, it was as if she were inside my head. How does she know? Every drunk thinks nobody knows the trouble he’s seen, every drunk. And as one who’s gone through it, I can spot a “problem drinker” a mile away.
Drinking played an integral part in my desire to stop drinking, but the decision itself was all me (by God’s hand, of course). I didn’t want to wake up hung-over and reeking ever again. No more smuggling and hiding bottles and cans or trying to conceal how much alcohol I was consuming when in the company of others. The compulsion to drink began to weaken. A couple of years ago, I tried to capture the journey to sobriety and its aftermath on paper. It was very difficult to write. The result was “A Sobering Truth.”
Everything happens for a reason, and God’s plan for my life is unfolding as it should. I believe that. I am faithful that he is faithful. He brought Knapp’s book into my life, just as he planted the thought in my head that I needed to stop destroying his temple. Whenever I lament about the past and want to kick myself now, people usually say, “What you’ve gone through makes you the person you are today.” I feel better, and I know it’s the truth.
Still, I wish I could have all those years back.
