{"id":20229,"date":"2017-03-17T12:29:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T19:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=20229"},"modified":"2017-03-17T13:55:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T20:55:36","slug":"erin-go-drygh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=20229","title":{"rendered":"Erin Go Drygh"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo\"I quit drinking ten years ago this month. I wasn’t convinced I really meant it or\u00a0how long it would\u00a0last, so I didn’t mark the calendar. Every\u00a0year I pull an anniversary date out of the air and tell myself not to celebrate\u00a0until then. This year I picked the 17th, at the time not noticing it\u00a0was also Saint\u00a0Patrick’s Day.\u00a0Is that ironic or what?<\/p>\n

Anyway, whatever the exact date, I’ve arrived at the ten-year mark. If I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous I’d be pinning on my ten year chip. Tee effing total. How dry I am. On the wagon so long\u00a0my butt’s molded to the seat.<\/p>\n

And I don’t miss it. I love waking up feeling good\u00a0and being clear-headed. I like myself better; I’m better to be around. There’s no\u00a0need to\u00a0avoid bars and parties; hasn’t been since the first year.\u00a0Once the temptation’s gone the presence of\u00a0alcohol isn’t a problem. That scene in Flight where Denzel Washington empties\u00a0the mini-bar in the\u00a0unlocked hotel room next to his? That wouldn’t be a problem with me. Unless the mini-bar was stocked with chocolate.<\/p>\n

Being around drunks is another thing, though. Not drinkers, drunks. I stay away from that scene, not because drunks are\u00a0contagious\u00a0(quite the opposite) but because they remind me of a former self, one I’m ashamed of. I stay away from the kind of activities where people intentionally get wasted. One of the benefits of getting older is that most people my age drink far less than they used to, and some, like me, don’t drink at all any more. These are the people I hang with, mostly.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I know my transition to sobriety has been comparatively easy, and for that I’m thankful. I’ve been around drinkers all my life and know first-hand how hard it can be to quit. I’m also aware that drinkers\u00a0don’t like it when non-drinkers\u00a0start going on and on, and I’ve gone on way too long already.<\/p>\n

Corned beef and cabbage tonight, and maybe a good movie on Netflix. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I quit drinking ten years ago this month. I wasn’t convinced I really meant it or\u00a0how long it would\u00a0last, so I didn’t mark the calendar. Every\u00a0year I pull an anniversary date out of the air and tell myself not to celebrate\u00a0until then. This year I picked the 17th, at the time not noticing it\u00a0was also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2089,2262],"class_list":["post-20229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-drinking","tag-sobriety"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20229"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20242,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20229\/revisions\/20242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}