Is the Toughest Part of My Alcohol-Free Year Yet to Come?

A quarter of the way through my personal sobriety challenge, and just like in a marathon, it feels like no distance at all.

I am running by the river, along my regular route. It is crowded with people and dogs and strollers; it’s a glorious spring evening, and everyone in the neighborhood, it seems, has been lured out of their self-isolation.

Did I say that I’m running? I meant to say that I am lumbering, the dictionary definition of graceless, each lift of my leaden legs requiring Herculean effort. I feel like I weigh 7000 pounds (hey, thanks, self-isolation stress eating!); the ground fairly trembles with each footfall. The cadence of my breath refuses to fall into time with my effortful stride.

Worse news: I am only just approaching the dark pine that juts above the fence amid the barren stretch of industrial parking lots. This, I know without checking my watch, is the quarter marker of my route.

A quarter. One pathetic quarter. And when is 25 percent ever an impressive amount of anything?

I am only halfway to halfway. The finish line of my typical out-and-back route is literally nowhere in sight. The vast majority of the ardor lies before me, and with each desperate gasp for air, I have every reason to believe that I am going to die.

Once I start running, I rarely quit. But if I’m going to quit, this is the moment — halfway to halfway, with no end in sight.

I keep my eye on the third bench past the gazebo, the halfway mark. Here is where I will turn around and finally fix my gaze on the finish line, knowing that the worst is behind me. But between the bench and the dark pine, which I have only just past, stretches an infinite length of trail. I can just make out the bench, a shapeless blob on the horizon. Surely it will come into clearer view soon. It has to.

All I have to do is keep my head down, breathe, and lumber on.

As of this writing, I am a full three months through my 366-day alcohol-free challenge. If you had asked me a few years ago if I could have gone this long without drinking, I would have guffawed in your face.

“Why on Earth would I give up drinking for three months?” I would have asked. “What good could possibly come of that?”

Well. I have contemplated those questions, and then some, in the past two-plus years of intermittent sobriety challenges, and the very abridged answer to both is that I just feel better when I don’t drink.

Over this period of time, I have given up booze for 100 days on two separate occasions, and for 200 days on one, and I am good at it now. While my legs and cardiovascular system may need some work, my sobriety muscle is strong.

But is it strong enough? I must have thought so when I deemed myself ready for the challenge of an entire booze-free calendar year. But here in mid-April, just a little better than halfway to halfway through my personal marathon, I’m not so sure.

I could say that global events are conspiring against me, but setting aside a certain pandemic-shaped wrench that has been lobbed into everyone’s 2020 plans, my guess is that these upcoming months would be tough even under ideal circumstances.

I blame the time of year. More than any other season, there is something about spring, when the daffodils poke up their heads and daylight extends well past the dinner hour, that finds me aching to drink. I don’t regularly suffer from FOMO, but the wafting aroma of burgers being grilled in neighbors’ yards makes me want to crack a beer and wander over to see what’s going on.

It’s is doing a number on me. I long to clink glasses (even if at a socially safe distance from my front deck) with my friends and neighbors, to be enveloped in the fold of conviviality and good cheer. Maybe the self-isolation is getting to me. Or maybe, if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not as immune to FOMO as I’d like to think. How dare a good time take place without me?

Or perhaps it’s simply because it feels like forever before this collective celebratory vibe will come around again.

I am only halfway to halfway. No finish line in sight.

Can I just put my head down, keep breathing, and gracelessly lumber on?

An unseasonable biting wind has picked up on the trail. Also, I have forgotten my hat at home and through the trees, the setting sun blinds me in intermittent bursts, like a strobe light. Its effect is disorienting, made all the more so because, as I may have mentioned, I’m dying out here.

That damn bench. Intellectually, I know it must be getting closer. It has to be, unless there has been some shift the time-space continuum while I’ve been busy sucking wind. But when I look up, it is still a blur.

I put my head down again. I focus on the rewards soon to come — the hot shower, the extra scoop of ice cream after dinner, the delicious tingle in the muscles that will linger for the remainder of the evening. The rewards will only be sweet if I’ve fully earned them. I have to keep going, I tell myself. That bench has to be getting closer.

A blast of cold wind slices through me. The sun jabs my eyes. The bench is moving, I swear, being sucked into the vanishing point of my perspective. It’s disappearing before my eyes.

Also, did I mention that I’m dying?

I quit.

Running and sobriety are, for me, anyway, not unrelated. Both are essential to my emotional and physical well-being. Both are tough. Both fill me with a sense of vitality and purpose. They work in symbiosis — I couldn’t do one without the other.

But they are not the same thing. One does not represent the other.

This evening, when I stop running and turn around and walk back to my car, the setting sun warming my back, my regret is small. I don’t love that I quit, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s just one run. I can always get back out here tomorrow, no worse off, and try again.

But if I started drinking now? Even now, when the weather and global events and my neighbors’ laughter seem to be calling to me? Even now, at the toughest point, halfway to halfway?

I won’t. I can’t. The regret would be bigger than me. I would be worse off tomorrow. It would feel like the end of the world.

There’s another difference between running and sobriety. While I love having run, I kind of hate running itself. It’s painful and boring and I spend every second of it wishing it was over.

But sobriety, almost every second of it, is actually wonderful, a marathon of more joy than pain. The rewards are immediate and abundant. And I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that for every evening of drinking on the front deck that I forgo, there’s a sweeter sunrise awaiting me.

Halfway to halfway isn’t far. But I have every reason to lumber on.

If you need help to stop drinking, you’re not alone.

And there’s no shame in getting addicted to something deeply addictive. The fact is, it’s likely not going to get any easier to stop than it is this very moment.

Go to your doctor, try Smart or AA or Hip Sobriety or Soberistas; do whatever it takes to stay sober for 30 days. Read beautiful hangover. Listen to Recovery Elevator and SHAIR podcasts. Read This Naked Mind. Try Moderation Management.

There is a whole community of people just waiting to help you. Reach out. Something better is waiting for you.

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