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A Lenten Observance
I gave up alcohol for Lent this year. Good year for it.
This may not sound like a big deal to many Ricochetti. I’m sure some of you don’t drink. Some of you might scarf down a beer on a Saturday afternoon, after mowing the lawn or cleaning out the gutters. Some probably will occasionally (or nightly) have a glass of vino with dinner.
I don’t drink like that. I drink alcohol in amounts that would, to most normal people, seem egregious. It’s not that I have a drinking problem (said every guy with a drinking problem, ever). It’s just that I have a much higher baseline than the average fellow. By genetics, upbringing, and culture, I’m predisposed to enjoy quaffing rivers of intoxicating beverages.
I heard a comment on a podcast years ago that illuminated the situation perfectly. The comment was made by Dr. Drew Pinsky, licensed physician and addiction medicine specialist. Any behavior is a problem if it leads to negative outcomes, whether said behavior is related to booze, contraband drugs, legal drugs, gambling, sex, or pornography. So, I’m good.
I’ve only ever had one hangover. Granted, that involved a blackout and ensuing police report, which is indeed a negative outcome. Further analysis and meditation determined that the problem was not so much the drinking, as it was going through an eight-month dry spell (deployment for the first Gulf War) and then on my first weekend back at home-station drinking what I would consider a “normal” amount of alcohol without working up to it. Oops.
No hangovers. No arrests for alcohol-related incidents (except that one time when I didn’t do the appropriate pre-mission train-up). No alcohol, at all, if I have to drive somewhere. No alcohol, at all, if I even might have to drive somewhere (this rule was for the Mongettes, instituted for such occasions as prom, house parties, dates, etc.). No alcohol on deployment–heck, I don’t even drink when the job takes me on a short-term overseas trip (mostly; certain caveats apply). No one can say that they’ve ever seen me “drunk.” I think stumbling around, slurring speech, and speaking gobbledegook is undignified, and if that should ever happen, drinking would get truncated immediately.
When it comes to drinking, self-defense expert Rory Miller nailed it: “Well, what the heck else are you going to do while waiting for the next fight to come along?” I may have to reexamine that statement, since getting into fights is no longer in my job description. Sadly.
The only theoretical negative of my drinking is the reaction of the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Mongo. When I’m not drinking, she’ll say,”You’re being such a bastard, would you please have a drink?” When I am drinking, she’ll say, “You’re being such a bastard, would you please stop drinking?”
Don’t think she’s dug down to the true common denominator, there.
Lent this year was 46 days long per the Catholic calendar. On holy days of obligation (to include Sundays’ Mass), one is relieved of one’s observance. I blew that relief off. First, if you can go 40 days, 46 shouldn’t be that great an imposition. Second, I didn’t want to make it a short-term, “just hold on ’til Sunday” proposition. Do the 46, Mongo, and don’t snivel about it. Well, okay, 45 days. I gave (up front, from the outset) myself a carve-out for St. Patrick’s Day. I mean, that was a day of family obligation. Were I to blow off St. Patty’s day, the ghosts of thousands of blue-painted Picts, dark surly Celts, and probably more than a couple of axe-swinging Saxons would rise up to express their umbrage at my blowing off their day of remembrance.
I noted, over the course of Lent, some of the by-products, side effects, and tangential phenomena that came with voluntarily drying out. Some conformed to what I had been told about teetotalin’; some were 180 degrees out.
Sleep.
What I was told: Quality of sleep will go way up. You’ll find your sleep far more replenishing than before, and you’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to attack the day!
What I experienced: Meh. Sleep was okay. I didn’t notice any real difference. My mornings were not appreciably better. Of course, that may well have to do with Conrad, the cannonball Pit, and Leia, the ADHD German Shepherd being the arbiters of how much sleep I get and exactly what time around the crack of dawn I was going to get up. Mutts.
I did find myself going to bed earlier, though. Mostly out of sheer, unrelenting boredom.
Weight.
What I was told: Your metabolism will normalize, and if you stick to your regular diet (i.e., don’t compensate for the lack of alcohol by scarfing down a non-stop stream of Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s) you’ll find your ideal weight.
What I experienced: I dropped about 20 pounds in the first week. Which, in my opinion, is about 30 pounds under my ideal weight. I could not put the weight back on–and after a significant weight loss about four years ago, I had been assiduously and purposefully shellacking back on the mass. Nope. Gone. I must’ve pounded about a case and a half of Muscle Milk a week, on top of my normal diet. To no avail. [Pro tip: If you’re going to supplement protein by slugging down liquid proteins like Muscle Milk, Ensure, or some kind of whey, sip it down over 20-30 minutes. Shotgunning it down, screaming “Yarghh!! Protein, baby!” can lead to some pretty severe cramping and, uh, intestinal disruption.]
Mental acuity.
What I was told: You’ll find you’re sharper, longer and task performance will be enhanced.
What I experienced: No increases in mental acuity noted.
Attitude.
What I was told: You’ll have a better attitude, be friendlier and, darn it, you’ll just be a nicer person.
What I experienced: See note above about being a bastard.
Random Stuff:
-I did bust out and drink on a couple of Sundays. 22 and 29 March. COVID made me do it.
-My workouts were pretty good. Not world-changing, Holy Schnikes I’ll never drink again good. But good.
-The only thing this whole COVID evolution was good for was the non-drinking meditations on non-drinking. I could’ve probably busted out of the sobriety deal and no one would blame me but me. (And I know all y’all know this, but this is for posterity.) First, I couldn’t go anywhere “social” (not a big deal, for bastard me), then I couldn’t go to work. Then I couldn’t go to work and we were all on an informal ration schedule (BTW, students of counterinsurgency should note how closely our “social isolation” mirrored “population control measures.” Not a fan). And I’m stuck with sober. Awesome.
-The more the world pushed on me with reasons to quit, the more there was no way I was going to quit. That made me think on “am I doing this for Him? Or for me?” Then I thought, well, if I’m just hanging in for me, then maybe He should’ve made me with an ounce of quit in me. Then I thought, well, that’s pretty awful. Then I thought, either way I go, it can be ascribed to egotism, so stick with the plan, knucklehead.
-Whenever I do shuffle off this mortal coil and stand to be judged, this better count. When St. Peter starts rolling through the list of all the things I did wrong, all the things I did poorly, and all the things that I should’ve done but didn’t, I’ma just point to Lent 2020. It should help. A little. I hope.
Published in General
You picked the wrong time to give up alcohol. 😉
Sometimes thinking should be done with a stopwatch. Or a pitcher. Or Cato.
On the contrary, since it’s so much easier right now to order booze delivered to one’s doorstep, if I’d sworn off booze for Lent I’d be in quite a quandary.
;-)
Damn that’s tough. I’m ‘a hoist one for you tonight bro.
Welcome Boss to the second half century of existence, it not going to be the same as the first half.
When my sister was in kindergarten she tried to give up making her bed for Lent.
Yep. For some strange reason, I was reminded of this:
You have deprived her of a toggle switch. It gives the illusion of control. Doesn’t matter whether it works or not.
Shades of Lloyd Bridges in “Airplane”! It is all good just so long as next week we don’t see an article from you titled “I picked a bad time to give up (fill in the blank with oh, I dunno, cocaine, airplane glue, etc.)”. And trust me on this, as you progress into your second half of a century the 20 or so pounds will come back…and they will bring friends. Dang it.
I quit drinking during lent for 35 years. Then four years ago I stopped drinking altogether. My wife asked me what I was going to do with all the money I saved. My answer was same thing I did with the money I saved when I quit smoking. Waste it.
I drank my share in college. Then I joined a frat and I drank your share. @arahant doesn’t drink. I drank his share too. We noted that when the alumni would return for Homecoming, or Founders’ Day activities, they would attempt to keep up with us. They were out of practice.
It wasn’t pretty.
I toned it down some after school. Not much, but when I hit a rough romantic patch, it went up and stayed there. No problems. No hangovers either. But still more than I needed. I decided it was more than I needed. So I stopped. I wish cigarettes had been that easy.
I will still imbibe from time to time, but I just don’t think about it much. No alcohol in the place now. No plans to buy any. Quitting smoking made a bigger difference to me personally. I actually have a sense of smell now.
I have been alcohol free for a week or so.Not for any noble cause but just because I drank everything in the house and then found out the liquor store won’t let anyone in. Evidently you have to order online and then do curbside pickup, So this morning I decided to logon and try to figure that out but . . .
Indeed, the beer stores and the liquor stores in Ontariostan have suspended delivery; but the breweries, wineries, and distilleries have more than made up for it by doing deliveries themselves, often with no service charge.
I’m not a regular heavy drinker (no matter what you may have heard in the PIT) but I do have a legendary love for vino, so I too decided to give up drinking for Lent. And I was determined to stick to it.
So when the cast for a fantastic show I was in rehearsals for had their first “getting to know you” outing, I went along to the pub, but abstained from spirits. And when my work crew met up at our local dive for one last time before our office moved across town, I showed up — and stuck to club soda all night.
But then came that fateful Thursday, March 12, two days before tech, when I showed up for rehearsal, having been too busy to see any news all day, to discover that Broadway had been shut down and now, after an emergency meeting of cast and crew, in our tiny little off-off-Broadway playhouse, so were we.
“I’m buying,” said the Artistic Director, “if anyone would like to join me around the corner for a drink.”
And that, boys and girls, is how my Lent ended early this year.
So I’m raising a glass to you, Boss, for sticking it out. Good on you.
Boy, I thought it was wild and crazy being inside my head! Seriously, I’m impressed. And I think G-d will be pleased.
My liquor store will deliver to any quandary within a five mile radius.
Sounds like my Lent too – Wait, the kids will be home for at least 3 week for Spring Break, and we’re not allowed to go anywhere? AND I STILL HAVE TO GO TO WORK? Yeah, that… well… no plan survives the first 5 minutes of an engagement.
This year I choose to take up saying something nice to a stranger every day. I did OK for the first week or so, but then no strangers… I tried substituting saying nice things on Facebook, but that is not personal. Maybe I’ll try again next year.
I’ve largely given up beer. Substituted with whiskeys and whiskys. I topped up the cabinet (wallet-buster scale) just as Covid-19 was breaking out. Then I gave up Doritos for Lent. (:
I gave up panic.
I was very excited to try alcohol for the first time, because I grew up helping my dad make various kinds (cranberry wine, elderberry liquor, and hard cider from what I remember) and I figured that my mom’s French-Irish origins would endow me with a fair amount of tolerance, as well as having read Roger Scruton’s book about wine and being a very adventurous eater. There was a little bit of conflict in the fact that I could legally drink the moment I got to university, but not in the US, so I decided to abstain the first year, even when we went to Russia. Then, when I came home for Christmas break from Italy this year, bearing various kinds of alcoholic gifts for friends and family that I hadn’t tried (a bottle of Prosecco, three different kinds of liquors, and a bottle of bitters), my Dad was kind of puzzled as to why, having been to there and France several times, I had never indulged. In France it was because I was afraid of compromising my linguistic skills to an unknown degree, and in Italy because I had an awful cold courtesy of my Russian tutor and thought I was going to die of pneumonia. He handed me the least bitter, smoothest beer that he preferred and told me to drink it. One sip later I was cleaning my mouth out in the kitchen sink. And that has been pretty much my experience with every kind of alcohol I have tried, from sake and Prosecco to tequila and red wine, I absolutely hate it all. The only kind I can take is that which has flavoring (like coffee tequila) and even then I max out at one shot glass full. Every single kind has the same awful, underlying taste that makes me want to sick if I even smell it, so I’ve come to the conclusion that alcohol may be to me what cilantro is for many people. I’ll simply have to find something else to be an indulgence.
I am so sad for you.
My condolences. A great deal of local culture is wrapped around local brews and spirits. You are the most culturally adventurous young adult I can think of, so I’d rate your situation as comparable to an artist afflicted with cataracts, or a partially deaf musician. The complex flavors of aged wines and spirits are largely due to the solvent nature of alcohol, making it possible to tease exotic organics from containers and capture organic by-products in anaerobic conditions that would otherwise be lost. You can’t taste these things without the alcohol to carry them.
Consider smelling and sipping instead of consuming mouthfuls at a time. You might find it tolerable that way, and eventually acquire a taste for it all. And you’d be participating in cultural content that is often really important to locals. Indulging for the “buzz” is not terribly important, in my not-so-humble opinion.
I’m surprised your father didn’t have you taking a “test” sip of the concoctions he prepared as you grew up. I credit my fondness for Scotch to exactly that with my father. In my case, it became a reward for me preparing the concoction for him, once I knew how he liked it. (:
I have a friend who is a now-recovering alcoholic. He refrained from drinking anything until, towards the end of his college career, he had a beer. And that, he said, was that. Full-blown alcoholic for the next twenty years until, many appalling, life-destroying experiences under his belt, he stopped. Anyway, one of the things he pointed out was that alcohol is actively pressed upon people, even those who have explained that they are addicts. “Oh, come on!” they’ll say. “One beer won’t hurt you!”
It seems strange that the reaction to Kirkian Wanderer’s revelation isn’t something more along the lines of a shrug and a “well, different strokes for different folks…” or even “the good news is, you don’t have to worry—as Boss Mongo and I have worried—about whether you are or might become an alcoholic.”
This is a gift, Kirkian Wanderer.
I didn’t thing “meeting TLATMM” could move any closer to the top of my bucket list. But I think it just might’ve.
Thanks for my first, and probably best, laugh of the day (it was a good one). Such self-awareness is a rare and wonderful gift, not least because, in large enough doses, it generally mitigates against the negative attribute one is claiming for oneself.
Wonderful post, Boss. Happy Easter to you and yours.
KW, you and are are like weirdo, bizzaro-world exact opposites.
My maternal grandfather was a cattleman, and probably one of the last true American Cowboys. He gave me my first beer when I was 6 or 7, coming in after having thrown hay and salt for the beeves. It was delicious, it was wonderful, it was revivifying after a hot, sweaty day on the ranch, and I figured that I figured out early the meaning of life.
Pops used to keep at least a six-pack of those little pony Miller High Life beers in the fridge for me since I was about 8. I never thought it incongruous at all as an 8, 9, 10 year old to come into the house, walk to the fridge, pop a Miller High Life and say, “Dang, it’s hot out there today.”
@arahant is the same way, and (spinach on pizza jokes aside) he is an adventurous gourmand as well, within the limits of also having celiac.
The sensitivities of taste are funny the way they work out with some people. I’m not wild about alcohol myself, and though I do enjoy the flavor of a nice crisp beer, one is usually my limit, and harder stuff is a rarer indulgence simply because I dislike the effects. Look at it this way though, it’ll be one less vector for making a fool of yourself or getting in to trouble – might as well embrace being the sober one in your cohort, the one who will remember what everyone else wishes they could forget from the evening before.
Agreed 100%
Riggo (aka John Riggins) observed, “I don’t have a drinking problem. It goes down for me like it does for everyone else.”