Many weeks without alcohol. A quiet improvement.

Two decades of 2–3 drinks every evening (but no addiction!) and now not a single sip of alcohol in many weeks.

I had wine about seven weeks ago and then a beer five weeks ago. It was Friday evening. I finished my run and stopped at a grocery store to get a cold IPA. This was such a familiar routine — a beer after running, but for the first time, I didn’t enjoy it because, at that point, I had already been through several weeks of minimal drinking.

But I’ve not forgotten the pleasure of wine in the evening. I especially like chilled Chardonnay. I do often want a glass of wine, especially around the weekend. I want, not crave. Writing these very words, I feel an extra desire to break my dry stretch.

My dry stretch is not really a planned dry stretch. It just happened. I never made any hard promises or resolutions. There is nothing profound behind my abstinence. I just stopped drinking.

Benefits?

For sure, I feel healthier, but for me, this feeling is mental, not factual. My running is as good as it’s always been in recent years. I recently did blood work for the first time in a while, and the result came out perfect. I always accepted, however, that no amount of alcohol is good for you. To that end, I feel I can become even healthier now that I am not drinking. I expect I will become an even better runner.

I removed sluggishness from my evenings and mornings, but in the grand scheme of things, I can’t…