I’m writing this instead of drinking

It’s 8:51 pm and it’s been 104 days since my last drink, and what I really want to do right now is walk around the corner to the nearest liquor store and buy a bottle of whisky and drink most or all of it. But I can’t — or more accurately I won’t — because I’m committed to sobriety and getting my life on track and I know if I start drinking again I won’t be able to stop. So I’m writing this instead.

But holy hell is it hard. This is the disease, I know. My brain is telling me all of my feelings of self-loathing or fear or shame can be cured in an instant if I just give in. It’s a noise louder than anything. There are a dozen liquor stores in a mile radius of where I live. And I’m an alcoholic. And the hardest thing I have to do from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep every day is convince brain it’s not worth it to buy some booze. Which is what I want to do right now, very badly. And I’m alone and having a hard time stopping myself so I’m just sitting here writing it out.

In rehab they call it “playing the tape through.” If I go out and buy booze right now and drink it, it’ll feel great. I’ll just do what I used to do and get hammered and keep drinking until I’m number than numb and then eventually pass out. It sounds deeply appealing. But then tomorrow I’ll wake up and know what I did and have to live with it all over again. I’ll have my first hangover in over three months, and it’ll be a doozy. The clock will be reset. So instead right now I’m drinking sparkling cider and writing until the urge passes.

So I don’t want to drink. I want to wake up tomorrow and be able to say it’s been 105 days since my last drink. I want to be true to myself. I want to do right by the people who care about me and are rooting for me to stay sober.

This is an urge and every urge eventually passes if I focus and stay patient. So I wrote to talk myself into staying sober tonight. And for now, it worked.