K-Rock's Thoughts on Sobriety

For the 2+ weeks, I have been working on a month of detox. I got this idea from my brother when he did one back in January after a very solid binge. The first half of the summer (pre-all star break), I was dropping dollars upon dollars every Thursday night at Martha's and then driving half in the bag to work every Friday morning. Friday and Saturday nights I would either be at a bar somewhere in the Southern NH region or off somewhere drinking myself into stupidity. I decided about mid-way through June that in the near future I needed a break from this. The only issue was that I looked at my calendar and I had weekend trips planned for a couple weeks that I certainly was not going to drive to in order to remain sober. One weekend in late June involved a Friday in Rhode Island, followed by a Saturday in Connecticut that mandated me drinking excessively. The following weekend was back down to CT for another day of all day drinking. So i set the start date for the Sunday after that, July 8th.

The 8th was also pretty convenient because I did not have any facebook events to attend, which means my schedule was clear. I have plans to head up to the NH Lakes region sometime around August 8th, which means I had this one month to prove to myself and my family that I wasn't a complete drunk. I also figured it would be a good way to save some money and shed a few pounds. Most people I talked to about this did not think there was any way that I would go a month without drinking, so that was also some pretty decent motivation.

It hasn't been too bad over the past couple weeks, but this weekend was definately the most difficult so far. How, being 21 now, was I going to stay sober during my brother's birthday weekend? Friday night I lucked out because he decided to stay in Boston and wreak havoc there. From the sound of things, they had a good time, but I didn't miss out on too much. Saturday was where the difficulty began. We sat around all day outside because it was nice out. An occasion like this would usually mandate me laying by the pool drinking Bud diesels all afternoon. Then the real problem arose, going to the Grand Buffet. How the fuck am I going to sit at a smokey karaoke bar surrounded by drunk NASCAR fans and not have anything to drink? Luckily, the entertainment of my brother and company rockin' the mic to such tunes as "Just a Gigolo" "Mack El Knife" and (a very sensual version of) "Need You Tonight" was good enough for me. Sparks flew and a couple chokeholds were applied during a performance of "Don't Stop Believin'" and it was a solid evening.

The following day involved a trip to Fenway Park to watch a Red Sox-White Sox game. I will quickly summarize the afternoon by saying the Red Sox won, I stood on Yawkey Way for over an hour and watched people drink beer, I walked by Dan "Shank" Shaughnessy, and had an up close view of Jerry Remy where I was able to watch him sit in the announcing booth and smoke a cigarette during the game (no joke). Another fun day that involved me consuming no alcohol whatsoever.

So here I am today, 15 days through my month of detox. A few of my friends have made comments throughout the past couple weeks that they wish I wasn't doing this because i'm not as moody when I'm drinking. They can go fuck themselves. I have saved some money and shed a few pounds so far. I have not been able to use the "too hungover" excuse for anything, which I usually rely on a couple times a week. I guess once this month is over, I will come out of it having learned a few things. The first is that I am able to resist the urge to drink, but the second is that drinking is more fun than being sober, so I should probably learn to drink in moderation. I have about two weeks left and I can't wait until August 8th comes. I hope that I do not have a poor "getting back on the wagon" experience (like Hambone and Papa Livsey), but that is yet to be seen. Either way, let me give one piece of advice. Don't do a month of detox, very overrated.

- K-Rock -