Pending Unforeseen Disaster

If I had a day like yesterday back in March or April, Sober 2020 probably wouldn't have made it more than the first few months of the year. I won't go into specifics, but yesterday sucked. Not in any major way, but in a lot of small annoying ones that added up. And in 2019 (and 2018, 2017, and so on), those would be the days I wouldn't even be out of uniform before I was pouring myself my first drink for the evening. On the drive home, I couldn't help but think how great a crown and coke would have been to start the evening. But I was way too far into Sober 2020 to end it over a bad day.

Looking back, it's a bit crazy to me that I've made it this far and that, short of a major tragedy or announcement of impending doom, I'm going to go a whole year sober (a leap year at that!). And it's not that I haven't been tempted to drink; I've still got a decent liquor and wine collection in my mini-bar and I've built a pretty good beer collection during the year. But the times when it's felt tough, I've been able to tell myself "just one more day" and that's been enough to get me through it.  

Honestly, really bad days or even really good days haven't been the days I've felt most tempted to drink - it's been normal days without much going on. Lazy Sundays, quick and easy work days, days when virtually the entire city of Anchorage has been shut down... those are the days I hear a little voice in my head saying this would be the perfect time to just enjoy a beer or a glass of wine. A voice that says, even now, that I've gone long enough and refraining from alcohol at this point is just semantics. And in a sense, it might be right: the difference for my body whether I drink now or 20 days from now is negligible. And I think years from now, no one is going to think anything different if I say I was sober for most of 2020 or all of 2020. 

But this will be (again, assuming I do make it these last 20 days) the first time I've ever kept a New Year's resolution. And more importantly (to me), it'll be the first time I've really stuck to a personal commitment. I've noticed in my life I have a huge habit of saying I'm going to do things and then not following through, especially when it comes to my personal life and things that effect me. So while staying sober for a year may not have paid off in ways I originally thought it might (I did not suddenly develop superpowers, though I'm still hopeful these last weeks of 2020 might have something magical in store for me), it has definitely helped me in ways I wasn't expecting. We'll see if that ends up having any long last effects.