does sobriety suck?
Well, let me answer that before i even get started. Yes, sobriety sucks.
But lately i have been thinking about if perhaps it sucks less than the other options. Especially as you get older.
I have been through phases in my life of being a somewhat heavy drinker (daily 6 pack), high-functioning meth head (bumps before breakfast), big-time weekend binger (all of the things) and a stone-cold teetotaler. The past 4-5 years i have mostly settled on 2-3 drinks after a shitty day and boozing 'til blackout on Friday nights. The drinking is often tied to my work stress now - it's a way to evacuate any residual work thoughts from my brain after a bad day, and a way to help me escape the looming horror that soon i will back at work, a cure for the Sunday night blues.
But, realistically, it also makes work suck even more when you go in with a hangover. And because i am now Old As Fuck™, i get a hangover - or at least a fuzzy brain - after just 1 or 2 drinks the night before. I wake up in the morning, and i don't feel like i got a good enough rest. I feel grumpy. I go to work, my mind wanders. Can't focus. Can't do a good job. Then inevitably by the end of the day i feel upset about my poor performance which leads me back into the cycle of boozing it up to forget that i wasn't delivering at the level i expect of myself.
Sometime earlier this year i realized i was getting fat from all the binge drinking on the weekends, and the school night drinks were just making me even more miserable at work than i already was. So i cut back a bit. Like, maybe 1-2 drinks in total during the week, and instead of getting blackout drunk on Friday, just having a few.
2 weeks ago - or was it 3? - i quit smoking again too.
I mean, i wouldn't call myself a "real" smoker any more than i would call myself a "real" alcoholic... because for over a decade now my smoking has been on and off, at worst a few cigarettes per day, at best just one cigarette every few days. There's been long periods of being fully quit too, no smokes of my own for months or years, just saying yes to people who offer. So, right now, it seems i am back in a period of not having any smokes of my own.
Smoking is an easier thing to figure out than drinking. It's only mildly mood-altering, like coffee, and the high doesn't stack. I like smoking, i make no apologies about that. On Letterkenny recently there was a great bit about how the guys thought they could quit any time, but they just liked having a dart, so until they had a dart they didn't like, they'd keep on having darts. For those of you who haven't hung out with working class Canadians, that's the slang for cigarette. But, for some reason, the one that sticks with me is the Australian slang - durry. Oy, you want a durry? I'll have a durry. Never had a durry i didn't like.
Anyway, i like having a durry. Most of the time it feels good. It's especially nice that it gives you an excuse to go sit outside for a bit. Watch the world go by. Meet some people. (Although that happens much less nowadays, since the brief window where lots of people still smoked but also smoking was banned inside has closed.) The problem is, when you are an occasional smoker, you don't get through a whole pack before it starts going stale. So you get a few smokes that are an A grade nicotingle experience, and then after about a week they are lacking. Two weeks, you might as well be smoking pocket lint. And if you have a heavy drinking night, you might smoke more than one stick of pocket lint, and then the next day you are absolutely going to feel like shit, because the combination of hungover plus smoking the night before is awful. Cough ya guts up. Mouth tastes like ass. Plus, of course, the whole damn habit gives you cancer. You gotta factor the increased probability of having a miserable, painful death every time you light up. So, although i do like having the occasional smoke, and even though cigarettes are almost criminally cheap here in Taiwan, i am not sure that it's really worth it.
And that's the point i have been verging on for years with booze as well. Like, getting drunk feels fine. Of course it's not as good as proper drugs, but it's legal which makes it less hassle to obtain and less likely you're going to end up with nutjobs at your house. It's a good way to take back control of your brain after work tried to steal everything away from you. And it's kinda fun to just get silly and write long rants on LiveJournal that you completely black out and the next day turns out you were unexpectedly lucid. Because, bro, in real life hanging out with drunk people, a lot of them fucking aren't. And i am sure i aren't either, once i hit whatever threshold of stupidness that all drunk people do sooner or later. But when you're in that goldilocks zone, getting drunk feels pretty good. The hangover does not.
Now, there is some kind of morbid pleasure in a hangover. Staying in bed all day, lights off, comfort food, cozy shows... there is something to be said for just retreating into a ball of your own making. But i dunno. When you are working full time and you only get to have one of those a week, and then the next day you're miserable because you have to go back to work again the day after that, it feels like you just pwned yourself. Spend Saturday on a hangover, you swing straight back into Sunday night blues, and then it's just a fucking whole damn wall of work. Your whole life becomes about work! What a waste.
Although, i suppose, drinking or not, your whole life is about work anyway, so what's the difference?
God fucking damnit fuck work.
But when you wake up for an entire week of work when you didn't drink even a single beer all week... it's really pleasant for your first thought in the morning to be "wow, it feels so much nicer waking up without a hangover". The thing is, i am not sure if i can maintain that as my first thought of the day, because once the novelty wears off, my first thought will inevitably go back to being "fuck my life, i have to go to work".
Le sigh.
I don't know. I've been pondering all this stuff recently, but i haven't felt like i really had any novel thoughts. That's another aspect of getting old. Every thought you have about life, you already had it before, dozens of times. So this is no great awakening. There is not going to be some moment of clarity where i realize how much of my life i wasted getting wasted. My life has been fine. Not great. Could've been better. Could've been worse. Much worse. So, i suppose i'm doing okay.
Last weekend i went on a bike ride to Bali. It was nice. Less touristy than Tamsui. I splashed my face with seawater and got a nice 豆腐花 tofu pudding and 潤餅 lumpia. Kinda wish i could just sit out on the seaside for days, watching the boats come and go. Have a beer and a smoke. You know. Relax.
Is the only reason i'm not doing that stuff because it makes me less efficient at work and that makes me stressed?
Hmm.
But lately i have been thinking about if perhaps it sucks less than the other options. Especially as you get older.
I have been through phases in my life of being a somewhat heavy drinker (daily 6 pack), high-functioning meth head (bumps before breakfast), big-time weekend binger (all of the things) and a stone-cold teetotaler. The past 4-5 years i have mostly settled on 2-3 drinks after a shitty day and boozing 'til blackout on Friday nights. The drinking is often tied to my work stress now - it's a way to evacuate any residual work thoughts from my brain after a bad day, and a way to help me escape the looming horror that soon i will back at work, a cure for the Sunday night blues.
But, realistically, it also makes work suck even more when you go in with a hangover. And because i am now Old As Fuck™, i get a hangover - or at least a fuzzy brain - after just 1 or 2 drinks the night before. I wake up in the morning, and i don't feel like i got a good enough rest. I feel grumpy. I go to work, my mind wanders. Can't focus. Can't do a good job. Then inevitably by the end of the day i feel upset about my poor performance which leads me back into the cycle of boozing it up to forget that i wasn't delivering at the level i expect of myself.
Sometime earlier this year i realized i was getting fat from all the binge drinking on the weekends, and the school night drinks were just making me even more miserable at work than i already was. So i cut back a bit. Like, maybe 1-2 drinks in total during the week, and instead of getting blackout drunk on Friday, just having a few.
2 weeks ago - or was it 3? - i quit smoking again too.
I mean, i wouldn't call myself a "real" smoker any more than i would call myself a "real" alcoholic... because for over a decade now my smoking has been on and off, at worst a few cigarettes per day, at best just one cigarette every few days. There's been long periods of being fully quit too, no smokes of my own for months or years, just saying yes to people who offer. So, right now, it seems i am back in a period of not having any smokes of my own.
Smoking is an easier thing to figure out than drinking. It's only mildly mood-altering, like coffee, and the high doesn't stack. I like smoking, i make no apologies about that. On Letterkenny recently there was a great bit about how the guys thought they could quit any time, but they just liked having a dart, so until they had a dart they didn't like, they'd keep on having darts. For those of you who haven't hung out with working class Canadians, that's the slang for cigarette. But, for some reason, the one that sticks with me is the Australian slang - durry. Oy, you want a durry? I'll have a durry. Never had a durry i didn't like.
Anyway, i like having a durry. Most of the time it feels good. It's especially nice that it gives you an excuse to go sit outside for a bit. Watch the world go by. Meet some people. (Although that happens much less nowadays, since the brief window where lots of people still smoked but also smoking was banned inside has closed.) The problem is, when you are an occasional smoker, you don't get through a whole pack before it starts going stale. So you get a few smokes that are an A grade nicotingle experience, and then after about a week they are lacking. Two weeks, you might as well be smoking pocket lint. And if you have a heavy drinking night, you might smoke more than one stick of pocket lint, and then the next day you are absolutely going to feel like shit, because the combination of hungover plus smoking the night before is awful. Cough ya guts up. Mouth tastes like ass. Plus, of course, the whole damn habit gives you cancer. You gotta factor the increased probability of having a miserable, painful death every time you light up. So, although i do like having the occasional smoke, and even though cigarettes are almost criminally cheap here in Taiwan, i am not sure that it's really worth it.
And that's the point i have been verging on for years with booze as well. Like, getting drunk feels fine. Of course it's not as good as proper drugs, but it's legal which makes it less hassle to obtain and less likely you're going to end up with nutjobs at your house. It's a good way to take back control of your brain after work tried to steal everything away from you. And it's kinda fun to just get silly and write long rants on LiveJournal that you completely black out and the next day turns out you were unexpectedly lucid. Because, bro, in real life hanging out with drunk people, a lot of them fucking aren't. And i am sure i aren't either, once i hit whatever threshold of stupidness that all drunk people do sooner or later. But when you're in that goldilocks zone, getting drunk feels pretty good. The hangover does not.
Now, there is some kind of morbid pleasure in a hangover. Staying in bed all day, lights off, comfort food, cozy shows... there is something to be said for just retreating into a ball of your own making. But i dunno. When you are working full time and you only get to have one of those a week, and then the next day you're miserable because you have to go back to work again the day after that, it feels like you just pwned yourself. Spend Saturday on a hangover, you swing straight back into Sunday night blues, and then it's just a fucking whole damn wall of work. Your whole life becomes about work! What a waste.
Although, i suppose, drinking or not, your whole life is about work anyway, so what's the difference?
God fucking damnit fuck work.
But when you wake up for an entire week of work when you didn't drink even a single beer all week... it's really pleasant for your first thought in the morning to be "wow, it feels so much nicer waking up without a hangover". The thing is, i am not sure if i can maintain that as my first thought of the day, because once the novelty wears off, my first thought will inevitably go back to being "fuck my life, i have to go to work".
Le sigh.
I don't know. I've been pondering all this stuff recently, but i haven't felt like i really had any novel thoughts. That's another aspect of getting old. Every thought you have about life, you already had it before, dozens of times. So this is no great awakening. There is not going to be some moment of clarity where i realize how much of my life i wasted getting wasted. My life has been fine. Not great. Could've been better. Could've been worse. Much worse. So, i suppose i'm doing okay.
Last weekend i went on a bike ride to Bali. It was nice. Less touristy than Tamsui. I splashed my face with seawater and got a nice 豆腐花 tofu pudding and 潤餅 lumpia. Kinda wish i could just sit out on the seaside for days, watching the boats come and go. Have a beer and a smoke. You know. Relax.
Is the only reason i'm not doing that stuff because it makes me less efficient at work and that makes me stressed?
Hmm.