Friday, 26 February 2016

Habits



Does giving things up require strength? Maybe for some people it does but for me, it’s all about habit. Habit does it all. Habit is strong, more so; it’s relentless and dominating. This suggests that giving things up successfully only happens if you are weak; if you accept your weakness. Giving things up is easy once you understand that you have to step back and let habit do its work.  Habit is really strong so I don’t have to be.

I have given up alcohol. A little over five weeks ago I just stopped. I am training for another marathon so I suppose that’s the reason why. I like drinking alcohol because of the taste and the effect. A little part of me has died over the past few weeks because of this abstinence. I know that you’re supposed to be more alive and so on when you stop using a drug like alcohol but I don’t see it. That’s just a self-perpetuating myth espoused by those bewildered by medical and quasi-medical versions of what it is to live ‘well’.

I don’t feel any more alive or healthier. I don’t want alcohol anymore. It’s as if I just got bored with it. What about my dreams? None of them involves alcohol.

Over the last month or so, more than ever before, I have been hearing stories of premature and unwanted death (is there any other kind?). I often think that if I died tomorrow then I would have wasted the remainder of my life up to that point precisely because I had stopped drinking.


Life is too short to stop drinking.  But I am powerless really; I just haven’t got the habit any more.