#offthesauce

[thomasoutt]

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Are you drinking those #DirtyMartinis after you promised not to do that anymore? Well, here is your last chance to #CleanUpYourAct, or else we will just have to ship you off to that #BettyPlace for a little #Rehab. I tried to get you to #Behave. I tried to get you #OffTheSauce & #Sober, but "Oh, no!" It's the #BettyFordCenter for you, #BadBoy. (at Martini Cleaners)

[zowill1]

💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾 #Savage ass Nigga fw you Talk bout!!! #offtheSauce (at Splashtown)

[samusing]

Timeline of me eating the food I cook

During meal:

This smells terrible, but tastes good. Maybe when I become a mom, my food just automatically starts to taste good. You know, because I would make food through my breasts, so the food I make with my hands has to improve, right?

Almost finished with meal:

Hmm. That residue sure didn't taste like what I thought it would. It kind of tastes like soap and vomit. This is why I need a dishwasher.

10 minutes post meal:

Wow. I have never felt this feeling before. Am I going to throw up or pass out? I feel like I usually know. 

20 minutes post meal:

Okay, so neither happened, but do not cook that again. Also, the aftertaste is very odd. Perhaps like a reptile with hints of dairy. Is that normal? Is this what home cooking tastes like?

30 minutes post meal: 

WASH THE TUPPERWARE. The smell alone is making me woozy. Oi. Maybe this is always what home cooked food smells like, but I was too busy making my escape from dish duty to realize.

60 minutes post meal:

So glad I learned to cook. Will have to call my mom and brag.

[samusing]

I meant to write everyday

but I have actually been rather busy. I guess I haven’t, but sleeping during the day makes days go by so much quicker. What a stupid sentence. Of course it does. Because you’re sleeping during them.

I haven’t slept nine hours straight in so long, though. I still have not adjusted to sleeping during the days, despite doing it for eight months. I miss sleeping at night, and it’s a bummer I only get to do it two days a week. Don’t take that for granted. It’s real nice.

I have officially gone nine days without alcohol, which is the longest I have done in four years. I went to an open mic, did a comedy show and went to a birthday party. These are all high anxiety situations in which I would have felt it necessary to drink because I find myself inherently uninteresting. The first days I didn’t drink, I felt very euphoric, which is not how quitting drinking had been described to me.  Granted, I was never a full-blown, dad’s getting fired from the plant alcoholic, but I looked forward to drinking every day. And I had many conversations with myself in which I fully admitted I couldn’t give it up. Once you do something you convinced yourself you could not, it feels pretty cool. Also, in my limited personal experience of nine days sobriety, I am very similar to how I am when drunk, except I’m not making out with people I don’t normally want to. I had convinced myself I was so much funnier and braver when drinking, but it’s all there anyway. You get it. This is nothing you haven’t heard before, but it’s something I have to write for my own sake as a reminder.

A while back, I was saying something like “I said this thing I always wanted to say to someone. I was so glad I was drunk because I did it with such confidence. I was so commanding,” and my friend said “You could have done that sober.” I was incredibly convinced I could have never done that sober at that time, but I probably could have. With more finesse and less “Hold on, I might vomit.” I was so so ill, but I never threw up. I just kept talking. Ugh. Sometimes I wish I just vomited and passed out.

I have never accomplished a long-term goal. I mostly am just like “I’m going to get my oil changed today!” And then I go and get my oil changed. It feels cool to make a huge change, even if it’s just for 30 days. 

At the beginning of my saga, I considered quitting drinking for good. It’s still on the table, I guess. If I don’t want to, am I not ready to start drinking again? I don’t know. Paradoxes, man.

Accomplishments as of late: cooking my lunches for work, watched Thelma & Louise, started using Duolingo to learn Spanish, only ate half of the Burger King fries I bought, re-upped my gym membership. Have yet to go.

Quit drinking, guys. All your dreams will come true. 

But, really, it has felt very nice. I miss the taste of beer, tho. I also miss having go-to plans. Now I have to fashion plans out of events and coffee. Doug Stanhope has a bit about how drinking basically creates a good time. I get that. Miss it. 

I also find that I'm eating more because I feel like I deserve it. So, that sucks and I need to cut that out. However, I am sleeping better and feel less tired overall, which is helpful when you're only sleeping six hours or so. My short-term memory seems better, but maybe I'm trying that "Whatever whatever I've never been better" approach that I employ when I break up/get broken up with. 

For real, though, no one is ever like "quitting drinking was a bad decision." So, that's all I really have to go on.

[samusing]

I'm quitting drinking for a month.

I shouldn't have to explain why I'm quitting, but I will anyway.

Personally, I've had a really crazy year. I say that every year, but this year has been especially bad because I drank more. In order to explain why I drank more, let me use an extended metaphor:

You know when you're starting to learn to cook, and so you try to make chicken? The first time you make chicken, you're like "Ew, this is very bad. I think I have to add pepper or something." And then you keep trying to make chicken without following any recipes. You just keep adding more pepper, but that doesn't do the trick. So, you start to add barbecue sauce every time you make chicken. The chicken is still bad, so you stop cooking it as thoroughly and add things like Sriracha to completely drown at the taste of your horrible chicken, which you're now eating every night. Before you know it, your chicken is covered in maple syrup, vomit and cocaine, and you have salmonella. You thought your chicken wasn't going to be good unless it had a lot of spices, but really, if you just worked on your chicken a little bit more, you wouldn't have needed all that. But, you never wanted to read up or ask for help, because you might be vulnerable and fail. 

So, that's why I have to quit drinking for a bit and learn how to make chicken. A month doesn't seem very long, but it's the longest I've gone without drinking since I turned 20. I'll be writing a lot about it because I'll have a lot of spare time in which I'm sober enough to write. I am excited and scared, which is how you should feel about anything worthwhile, so I know I'm doing something right.

Let's party (WITH DIET COKE AND BETTER OVERALL LIFE DECISIONS).