{"id":36128,"date":"2025-03-17T08:08:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36128"},"modified":"2025-03-17T08:12:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T15:12:25","slug":"the-seventh-level-of-craic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36128","title":{"rendered":"The Seventh Level of Craic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FL3HTXZUCRAIXOX4LPYFEVEDFM-814308355\"<\/a>Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Erin go bragh! We’re all Irish today!<\/p>\n

After an adult lifetime of progressively heavier drinking, I quit cold turkey in mid-March, 2007. When I decided to start celebrating the anniversary, I settled on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, as the marker.<\/p>\n

I didn’t start flogging my sobriety on the blog until March, 2010. Here’s what I wrote then:<\/p>\n

I quit drinking on the 13th of March, 2007.\u00a0\u00a0So today\u2019s my three-year anniversary.  I don\u2019t want to make a huge deal out of it.  Plenty of others have been sober longer, plenty of others have overcome drinking problems far more serious than mine.  And I don\u2019t wish to tempt fate; plenty of others have fallen off the wagon after three years or even longer . . . not that I think I ever will.  I love the way I feel.  I love going to bed feeling good; I love waking up every morning feeling good.  As for the booze itself, I don\u2019t miss a single thing about it.  I used to worry I\u2019d be a different person without it, that certain activities I loved, things like hashing and motorcycling, had become so identified with drinking I wouldn\u2019t want to do them any more . . . but not at all.  I still love the same things, just without booze.  Okay, I\u2019m starting to sound preachy, so I\u2019ll stop.<\/em><\/p>\n

What do I have to say in 2025?<\/p>\n

Well, for one thing, I’ve taught myself to use a single space between sentences and dots in an ellipse … see, old dogs can<\/em> learn new tricks! I still, every single day, appreciate how good it feels to go to bed sober and wake up clear-headed and refreshed. I no longer worry about falling off the wagon. Sadly, I was wrong about loving the same things as before; I no longer enjoy hashing and see almost everything hashers do as an excuse to get drunk. For the first couple of years, I didn’t mind hanging around in bars with friends who were actively drinking; I do now. I’m a quieter person in public and at parties, no longer compelled to blurt out off-color jokes or burst into a chorus of Sally in the Alley. And I’m fine with that. I had become increasingly disgusted with myself during the last few years I drank; I don’t mind admitting I’m proud of myself for quitting.<\/p>\n

Eighteen years sober. Yay, me! Thank you, Saint Patrick, for the strength to go the distance. Okay, I’m starting to sound preachy again, so I’ll stop.<\/p>\n

But wait, what about those levels of craic<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eighteen years sober. Yay, me!<\/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":[2262],"class_list":["post-36128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-sobriety"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36128","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=36128"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36135,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36128\/revisions\/36135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}