The evolution of my relationship with alcohol, as told by my writing on Medium

An interesting journey in the last two years, and I am glad I documented it in my writing. I didn’t think I was on a journey, and I had no goal of documenting anything, but it turned out that way. The start was cocky — “I drink alcohol every day.”

About a week ago, returning after one of my more intense runs in the late afternoon, I stopped by a grocery store and bought a cold can of IPA beer. I was thirsty, and I’d done it so many times before — drank cold beer after my running. I drank it once I got home, but I didn’t enjoy it. It was the first time in my adult life that I found the taste of beer subtly unpleasant. Was it the taste or the act of drinking? I barely drank any alcohol in recent weeks. I wasn’t going through any specially planned or strict dry stretch. It just happened. I’ve been feeling the desire to reset my life and to improve myself, but there is no switch for “resetting” or “improving” your life overnight. Not drinking alcohol in the evenings was one of the obvious ways to try to become more productive in life. But as I described in the last story in the list below, for me, it was always a gradual process. I avoided promises and hard resets; I was on and off with my evening drinks. I am pleased with how this approach worked. On that topic, I find my story about the bottle of Chardonnay telling. When I was doing my very first dry stretch at the end of 2022, I had wine in my fridge, and I avoided taking animated actions like throwing it out. I left it in the…