Let's kick off with a huge congrats, man. 100 days. Why is 100 days significant? What is the milestone?
The milestone is no alcohol for 100 days.
Congratulations. That is huge.
Thank you. That is huge. It is huge, especially given how much of an alcoholic I was. So, no, let's dive into it because I have over the decades, I guess, at this point, right? Seen you take a stab at sobriety many different times. And the success has varied, but nothing has approached 100 days. Nothing. Nothing anywhere.
Well, I mean, don't make it seem like it's that bad. I mean, when you were laying under those overpasses just taking hit after hit. Hey, listen. You've also taken a stab at non-sobriety with me many times.
Well, I was gonna say 100 days sober, even for someone who does not consider themselves a drinker, but let's just say for someone who drinks occasionally socially, like that's a meaningful period of time.
Right. I mean, that's a quarter of the year, more than a quarter of the year.
So, I'm sure we've talked about this. We've tracked it a little bit over time, but what made the difference this time around? Let's reiterate that for folks and maybe your answer's changed.
I think that initially it was fear of death which was largely driven by my doctor calling me up and saying your liver enzymes are like whatever it was 5x, 7x what they should be.
So that was number one. But just to give people a benchmark of kind of where I was at drinking wise, my journey with alcohol has been one of a love affair. I've definitely enjoyed the drinks, but for me, it's never been about drinking to blackout or drinking to even like any type of illness or sickness. It's just kind of consistency, meaning that when COVID happened, I was sober as could be for the first 3 weeks. And then I'm like, ah, you know, what do we have to do? We should just drink a little bit. I think everybody's going to be okay. At first, I was like, got to get my immune system like on point. And then I just kind of gave that up and there was a lot of, you know, loneliness and I was out in the woods in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and had some young kids. I was like, 'Ah, let's just crack a bottle of wine.' So, it was a very common, very normal thing for us as a household.
Yeah. For a lot of people to just crack a bottle and just finish the whole bottle between two people.
And that became the norm. And then I just remembered that for me I was always asking myself, can I take a day or two off per week? Which I think would be a good healthy thing. But then if you just add up the amount of drinks, even with taking a day or two off, if you're doing three drinks a night, that's a lot of drinks every month, right? It's a lot. And just to put that also in a broader context, part of the reason I've never lived full-time in New York City and part of the reason some of my friends have moved out of New York City is not because New York City is a bad place, but at least in the social circles by and large that I know, finishing a bottle of wine between two people, let's call that two and a half drinks a piece, that would be a light night in your city. And to do that, minimum three nights, but three, four, five, six nights per week in a lot of the groups I know at least, that is just par for the course, right?
Yeah. The issue is that when you get into your 40s and you have all that cumulative damage of decades, you realize, well, things start to shut down like your liver. So, that was the first sign.
Only have one liver, so you want to take care of that baby.
Yeah. The nice thing obviously about the liver is that until you're at that point of no return, it's pretty damn good at healing itself. And my liver enzymes snap back to normal ranges within 4 weeks, which is great to see. But when I think about when have I truly given it a break, when have I truly taken more? And I've taken a month off here or there. You know, there's like those dry Januaries and I would have a dampish January where like you have like a drink or two, but still kind of dry January. And so that was the norm. And then I just said if I can't go three months, then, and actually my therapist told me this. She said, you know, Kevin, it's kind of a golf clap at one month. 3 months is where the magic happens in terms of how you feel, your energy, your mood, weight loss, glucose control, all of the things that you've said you want to have. But can you do it? And it is really challenging to go 3 months for someone like myself that it is just a crutch around social situations. It is a crutch around, you know, if I'm being honest, when you have a partner where you're dealing with a couple little kids and it can be challenging with the kiddos and with the logistics of a household and all of a sudden you're just like, 'Ah, I had a hard long day at work and I had a long day at home like and I have some good wine sitting right there.' It's very easy to tap into that.
Yeah. What would you say made the difference this time around? You had the health scare. Yeah. Or at least the doctor saying like, 'Hey, hot shot.' It was surrounding myself with people that had done this before. How did you find them?
Well, I think we're at the age that if you, I'm sure you probably can check this box as well where I know right now three people that have successfully done 12-step programs.
In fact, we have a couple of friends in common that are now sober and have done these programs.
And yeah, that's exactly it. And you just reach out to them and say, 'Hey, what did you do? What about these 12 steps has worked for you?' I was always kind of put off by the religious aspect of the 12-step stuff. It just seemed to me like a little, I don't know. I didn't really think I had it that bad. But I knew that there were people that, and I had seen this, that stuck to it with the help and support of these people and they gather around you and really give you a kind of a toolkit to lean into. And for me that has been really understanding that it's not about the 3 months, it's just about winning today.
And so if you can reframe it as just not today. I can have a drink tomorrow, but just not today.
