“Believe you can and you're halfway there” (Theodore Roosevelt)- Day 61

I am very nearly halfway through this project. It’s not quite the longest I’ve gone without a drink (obviously ignoring the two passes). I got to 66 days before (I was aiming for 100).  

Next Thursday is day 67.

This time feels different. Scratch that! This time, it is different!

First, I have the benefit of the lessons learned from earlier booze free periods, including the calendar that I use to tick off the days. The big change this time around is that I tick off the day first thing in the morning instead of waiting for the evening. Proactively committing to an alcohol-free day first thing in the morning is final. It’s way different to passively ambling through the day. Decisive vs indecisive. Simple.

Second, the project has a hard start and a hard finish. Previously, periods were non-committal “can I make it to 100 days”?

Third, as mentioned in earlier blogs, I am not alone. By talking about this project to friends (wife excluded), I found out that that others are on similar journeys, alcohol or food, or both (no problem gamblers in my social circle that i know of). Their reasons are not too dissimilar to mine. Health, obviously!. Less obvious but pernicious as hell is the grip that booze and over-eating has on you. It’s exhausting. In our own ways, we are saying fuck you to that hold! We are breaking free!

Four, I am enjoying this project. And that’s huge. I never thought that sobriety would be fun. Paradoxically, I’m bored. Then again, I was petty bored before the 1st of April- which bring me to reason five- change.

Five, change. A and I need change, and we concluded that spending the weekends hungover isn't the change agent we need. Change is incremental, and we are creating the space for change to happen.

Six, the project has a purpose. I need to do this if I am to finish the city2surf one minute faster than last year.

Whilst on that subject, earlier in the week, I ran 16.5km at a pace equal to last year’s City2Surf (granted without the elevation/ hills).

It wasn’t a time trial. It wasn’t planned. I just went out and ran, and ran, and ran.

It just happened.

I only stopped because A called to ask where I was/ to let me know she was on Ben Bucklers Point with the dog., and coincidentally, I was only a few hundred meters away. Had she not called, I would likely have looped Ben Bucklers, ran a further 1500m and a steep section of Military Road to home.

I’d like to think that with 10 weeks to go, I am more than hallway to beating my “one year older, one year faster” target.

North Bondi (31/05/2024)