A HEALTHY 2023 TO ONE AND ALL
Happy New Year - spray paint and acrylic paint on plywood, executed in pajamas on New Year’s Morning
Happy New Year all you good people.
One of my goals this year is to do more writing on my blog. I got a nice TYPED letter from my friend Mr. Random expressing appreciation for this old-school site. Preserving a digital space outside the social algorithms is sort of quaint. And moving from Blogger to Squarespace is still something I’m getting used to. But let’s do this.
Thanks Mr Random!
One big thing about 2022: around Christmas I hit my six-month alcohol free milestone. Thankfully, this is a nuanced topic these days, with sober-curious culture going strong. Sobriety for good health, rather than a stigmatized response to some rock bottom crisis, is not a big deal. I was not going to die from drinking, unless being bored to death and sick of my own bullshit counts.
I’ve heard “but you don’t drink that much” a few times. And mentioning alcohol to my doctor at physicals always brought out the standard guidelines for drinking--two drinks a day is acceptable, etc.
That seems like a ton of drinks to me. Reason being, my brain is put together with a propensity for the blues, rumination and anxiety without alcohol. With even a mild hangover, that stuff’s even less fun. And I was binge-drinking on the sofa watching shows and movies and “decompressing” and then having crummy, anxious weekends. Did I watch that episode? Did I catch the end of that Truffaut movie? I can’t remember. Do I want to clean out that closet full of junk? Not today. Do I want to meet a friend for coffee? Not today.
Alcohol has been a huge factor in my family and social life, and as a musician I’ve swum in it for tedious years, seen people die, seen good people squander their good energy. It hasn’t helped me “rub elbows”, be “more fun to be around” or build good relationships, and it hasn’t made my music sound like The Replacements. It has made me dumb and quiet and unsure of myself in social situations. More unsure than I already am. Many social situations are boring and being bored is the appropriate response.
That all kinda sucks. So I put a plug in the jug, and that’s an ongoing story that I’d like to say more about.
