Years ago, I was with a group of friends enjoying some time off. I was set to deploy to the middle east a few months later.
In the middle of this, I remember having a drink and thinking, “this drink makes me slower, dumber, and weaker.” That it would make me more of a liability than an asset.
And those were the three words that stood out in sharp relief, “slower, dumber, and weaker”. I didn’t want these things. Who does? I wanted to be fast, sharp, and strong.
The next day, I decided to stop drinking for at least one year. I was a little nervous to do so, because I thought that camaraderie in the military hinged on the bottle. I was also new, and didn’t want to ostracize myself by refusing to engage in such a time honored tradition.
Also, by that point I felt fairly certain that I had had more fun while drinking than 99% of the world population. Most of that fun took place on a training trip to Germany during Oktoberfest that same year. Peak experience was fresh in my mind, and it was best to get off while on top.
Anyways, I imagined that my team mates would make fun of me or something. It turned out to be quite the opposite, and all I really received was support and understanding. In other words, no one really cared, and in a good way.
This was roughly six years ago. Since then, there has been a cumulative six or seven months in which I drank, so that one year off sort of influenced everything beyond it - about 90% of the road since then has been dry. It has consistently been one of the best life changes that ever took place, and touched every thing else in positive ways.
For those months I did drink, I can count a handful of moments that were actually fun, and none of those handful would have been any less fun without booze. Most of the other moments just led to hangovers, slowness, dumbness, and weakness.
I began to recognize drinking as just one thing among many that takes far more than it gives. But because this one big issue had gone away, I could see other issues that were also taking more than they give. Excessive caffeine was ruining my sleep. Screen time was ruining my attention span.
It turns out that lots of things make you slow, dumb, and weak. They all feed on each other too, and the problems they create compound over time. But you have to pick them off patiently, like a sniper hunting a wolf in the dead of Russian Winter.
And all these wolves fall to the same weapon - restraint. Restraint is a superpower in a world so heavily defined by indulgence. In the Darwinian selection process of the 21st century, it is the indulgent that get picked off, and the restrained who will survive and thrive.
So I mainly don’t drink to train the restraint muscle. It is like the ‘leg day’ of habit development. It is what actually makes you fast, sharp, and strong, and arguably - happy.
More next.
LH