This will be difficult

Today was the first New Years Day in a decade where I woke up without a hangover. This Christmas was the first one in years where I didn't have a beer. As of 30 minutes ago, I have not had a drink in 17 days, which is the longest span I have been sober since I enrolled in college 10 years ago.

This is a difficult post to write, a hard one to read, and I am on a journey that started out impossible and has worked it's way down to a daily struggle. Maybe it will get easier, but I doubt it.

It is easy to rationalize drinking in your early 20s. Every night has an excuse to go out and drink, and when you have a good job and a life that is on track with no ceilings in sight, drinking is just part of a bigger picture that looks pretty damn good, as long as you don't look real close at it. I spent years and years attempting to drink away self doubt and insecurities, but all I really managed to do was drink myself out of several relationships and out of the classroom where I was so happy teaching.

 Luckily, Miller Lite didn't stop me from landing on my feet, even though at that point it was readily apparent to everyone who knew me that I had a drinking problem. See, in your mid 20s, its not as acceptable to be hungover most mornings. People might not say anything, but every now and then you'll catch people giving you the side eye or talking about you to coworkers when you show up bleary eyed to work for the 11th day in a row. Family members also don't find it nearly as funny when you get so wasted you can't get yourself home, or pick a fight over something trivial because your drunk self just wanted to get mad at someone.

Now I am almost 28 years old, and I have found that living alone in a house full of empty beer bottles isn't a good indicator that you're husband material. In fact, women who love you really hate when they come home from a night shift to a trashcan full of cans and a boyfriend too hungover to let the dogs out. When the woman who loves you tells you it is going to be her, or the alcohol, it is finally time to do some self reflection. In the end, it was an easy choice to make. Every instance before, I had chosen the bottle. This time I finally decided to sack up, and give sober Ryan a chance.

My goal for now is to be sober for 90 days, but I can pretty much already tell that this is going to be an indefinite break from alcohol. Beer makes me a bad person, and I am too old with too much on the line to choose something as stupid as booze instead of being healthy. Everyday has been a struggle so far, and I think it always will be. I crave a beer when I am not thinking about being sober, and I have found myself guzzling soda like it is going out of business. But that is better than grabbing a beer. The road is hard, the journey is long, but it is worth it. I will be sober.