When you write things down, instead of storing them temporarily on your “inner voice” disc in your brain I think that you will learn to clearly articulate what you are thinking.
As an example of this, I rewrote the introduction because I thought that it didn’t make much sense at all.
When you are writing things down, it’s important to remember what the purpose of your writing is. Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing for your lover? Are you writing for your boss?
For each of these different characters you will need to take a different approach to how you structure your writing. For example, if you are writing purely to please yourself, a casual and somewhat breezy style is perfect.
But if you are writing to your lover, brevity is the soul of wit. How so? The less you communicate to your lover about anything, the more curious they’ll be about who you really are.
If your lover is asking questions and wanting to get to know you better, that’s a good thing. But if you boss is asking you questions and wanting to get to know you better in “that way”, that’s not a good thing.
When our generation has been reduced to “tl,dr,hoa” (too long, didn’t read, have opinion anyway), well-written content is more important than ever.
When people are not only reading less, but have the attention span of someone who has developed tolerance to their Ritalin prescription - whoever can hold the attention of someone for even a paragraph wins.
I blame Twitter for pushing the stake further into the heart of well-developed writing.
When you are limited to just 160 characters whether speaking to your followers or your friends via text message, the joy of reading a well-written piece of writing is as rare as hen’s teeth.
When you write things down, instead of storing them temporarily on your “inner voice” disc in your brain I think that you will learn to clearly articulate what you are thinking.
As an example of this, I rewrote the introduction because I thought that it didn’t make much sense at all.
When you are writing things down, it’s important to remember what the purpose of your writing is. Are you writing for yourself? Are you writing for your lover? Are you writing for your boss?
For each of these different characters you will need to take a different approach to how you structure your writing. For example, if you are writing purely to please yourself, a casual and somewhat breezy style is perfect.
But if you are writing to your lover, brevity is the soul of wit. How so? The less you communicate to your lover about anything, the more curious they’ll be about who you really are.
If your lover is asking questions and wanting to get to know you better, that’s a good thing. But if you boss is asking you questions and wanting to get to know you better in “that way”, that’s not a good thing.
When our generation has been reduced to “tl,dr,hoa” (too long, didn’t read, have opinion anyway), well-written content is more important than ever.
When people are not only reading less, but have the attention span of someone who has developed tolerance to their Ritalin prescription - whoever can hold the attention of someone for even a paragraph wins.
I blame Twitter for pushing the stake further into the heart of well-developed writing.
When you are limited to just 160 characters whether speaking to your followers or your friends via text message, the joy of reading a well-written piece of writing is as rare as hen’s teeth.
I believe I’ve found the most effective response to someone who keeps sticking their nose in your business as to why you don’t drink alcohol like everyone else does.
No thanks, I never drink
And if they persist:
It is what it is
And if they persist:
-
It’s none of their damn business.
The best thing that’s happened since I stopped drinking is how I’ve spent more time with people who are cool with me not drinking.
They’re not dicks about it, therefore in a way they’ve proved themselves true friends.
I never thought I would apply economic thinking to friendships but when it comes to giving up drinking, it’s clear that other people are running some sort of calculation in their heads along the lines of “he doesn’t drink anymore, therefore he’s not worth hanging out with”.
Funnily enough, some of my friends are more accepting of the decision not to drink than my own family.
But that’s another kettle of fish.
For now, a firm but polite response to someone sticking their nose in how you decide to live your life is my “reply of choice”.
It’s annoying when people don’t think you can have a drinking problem in your early twenties.
It’s like they’ve been brainwashed by the media to think of alcoholics as the homeless dude straining methylated spirits through a loaf of bread stolen from the bakery’s rubbish bin.
I started drinking at 14. I never thought I had any problems with alcohol.
It got worse, and worse, and worse.
Then I found myself in a lot of legal and financial trouble - solely due to my drinking problem.
I bombed out of university because my daily routine did not involve going to lectures.
It involved an eye-opener in the form of finishing off whatever alcohol was left over from the night before and then pouring myself a cold beer from the fridge for a power shower.
It took an older family friend’s “intervention” to point out that if I didn’t sort my shit out now I wouldn’t make it to 30 let alone live to a healthy age.
I have to admit that I cannot touch a single drop of alcohol.
I can’t “take a break” because each time I’ve taken a break, I’ve ended up worse than before I took the break.
I can’t “stop after having 3-4 beers” because each time I’ve tried, I’ve ended up drinking until I’m drunk or my card declines.
I can’t “just go out sober anyway” because nightclubs & bars are major cues for me that trigger drinking binges. It didn’t help working in hospo for 2 years a couple of very late nights a week!
In time I’m sure I’ll venture out to a club or a bar.
But I know I’m not ready yet and tempting myself would be bloody stupid.
You can have a drinking problem when you’re young.
Alcoholism is not the preserve of the homeless wino.
Facing up to it at 21 is a hell of a lot easier than facing up to it in your 40’s or 50’s when you are set in your ways I’m sure!
Eminem has struggled with alcohol, drug and prescription pill abuse problems. It’s fascinating to think how those problems influenced his musical career.
One of the most complete and fascinating films about drug addiction and recovery, “Clean and Sober” brings one of Michael Keaton’s best performances of all, really great and completely overlooked by the awards in 1988, same year of another fantastic performance of his, in “Beetlejuice”. If you haven’t seen it, find it and go forward. You’ll be very surprised.
The worst thing about giving up alcohol is that you find out who your real friends are.
Most of my friends weren’t actually friends, but drinking buddies.
How did I find this out?
ME: “Bro, I’m not drinking anymore aye” -> THEM
“What a bitch!”
“I guess you’re note coming to [X] then, what a dick”
“Oh true, sucks to be you”
And the social invites pretty much dropped off the face of the earth, just because I didn’t want to drink.
In New Zealand culture, not drinking alcohol is a form of social deviance.
Drinking has a time tested link to social bonding and group cohesion.
When you don’t drink, you are not part of the team.
There are only a handful of guys I can truly call friends - the ones who are cool with the fact I am giving up alcohol & drugs for good.
The rest have pretty much faded away because the sole reason I’d hang out with them would be to get wasted as a by-product of hanging out with them.
On one level, it completely sucks.
But on another level, at least I know my relationships are more solid because there is a non drinking related reason for hanging out - the girl I’m seeing, my gym buddy, my sparring partners, workmates and guys I can play Call Of Duty with on lazy days.
Removing myself from situations where I’d be tempted to drink again is a lot easier when your friends understand why you can’t drink and support your decision.
If someone is a dick about you not wanting to drink, they probably hate the fact that they have a drinking problem of their own they’re not ready to face up to.
So far so good. If there’s one thing I don’t miss, it’s hangovers.
Hangovers are the reminder from your body to your brain that no matter how fun drinking was at the time, there’s always a price to pay.
Speaking of price, when you don’t drink anymore you no longer experience OBSS.
Online
Banking
Shock
Syndrome
OBSS is one of the most acute symptoms of a serious drinking problem. It’s when you make up on a Sunday morning, log onto your internet banking and find out you spent over $200 at that one club and made a $31.90 transaction at McDonald’s at 0405.
I don’t want to know how much I’ve spent on drinking and related expenses either planned or unplanned (taxi trips, random fast food purchases, spontaneous online shopping etc) since I started drinking.
But it is probably a lot considering that last year alone my average weekly alcohol and clubbing expenditure was NZ$216. If you add in festival tickets and other expensive alcohol-related activities I really don’t want to know.
Having no more financial hangovers is probably the biggest non-health benefit for me. Suddenly I have money to do cool stuff and buy cool stuff that previous, quite literally went down the toilet.
Although my income has changed a bit from last year, I have set up an automatic payment into a savings account equal to what I used to spend on alcohol.
It’s with another bank and there’s no internet banking and I stopped the statements so the only way I can find out the balance is go into the bank.
I look forward to the end of this 12 months sober because I will have a really nice wad of cash sitting in a savings account that won’t slur it’s words or get into trouble.
No more financial hangovers for the next decade will make the other goals I have far more easy to achieve.
It’s amazing to think how alcohol & drugs handicap you financially relative to your peers.
It’s amazing the little lies we tell ourselves each time we try and give up drinking for good. This is currently my 5th serious attempt at kicking the booze. You could say that I’m good at stopping drinking but not good at staying there.
We tell ourselves we don’t actually have a problem, and keep on doing what we’ve always done. Even when people close to us tell us we’ve been a dickhead we’ll keep drinking all the time.
We tell ourselves we are still healthy because we work out, but we are literally destroying our body, our skin and our mental health with the most profitable poison on the planet.
We tell ourselves that we will only have a couple of drinks, but never follow through on it and end up wasted at 3am outside a club, wondering, how the hell did I get here?
I’ve decided to join Hello Sunday Morning to inject some accountability into giving up drinking for the next 12 months.
One of the problems with Aussie & Kiwi drinking culture is that we start young. I started at 14 sneaking bottles of spirits from my Dad’s liquor cabinet.
Within a year my friends and I were sneaking home during lunch to drink, have a BBQ, then return to school half-cut.
By the time I got to university I was drinking 2-3 times a week until I blacked out.
By the time I dropped out of university I not only had destroyed myself financially, academically, emotionally and legally I was drinking almost a bottle of spirits a day from a still we had in our flat.
Over the past year I’ve fallen off the wagon a few times, and it all started with little lies.
Each little lie I have told myself about how I could tempt fate by going out bar hopping with my mates, attending parties with open bars and stop cold after 3-4 beers has led closer and closer to the realisation that I can’t drink.
I went from being unable to function in a social situation without alcohol to declining an offer of wine at dinner every night.
I hope to use this blog as an accountability partner to document my 12 sober months in 2012, amidst a return to university and putting my life back on track.
I am keeping myself busy with things that make me too tired to go out drinking anyway - weightlifting, boxing with my mate, spending time with people who actually matter and not being the drunken douchebag in my new workplace.
This time I’m not lying to myself. And I’m damn well not going to lie to you either.
