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.