Abstaining

I have had 5(ish) alcoholic drinks since New Year’s. This was intentional. I’m not going sober and this wasn’t Dry January. I just wanted to see how long I could go without having a drink.

About 6 days or so, give or take.

I also cut back my coffee consumption from 4-5 cups to 1-2 cups/day (this was unintentional, it just happened that way)

What I notice now is that when I consume either of these things they work really well.

I’m also trying (with less success) to abstain from social media. Specifically Bluesky, which is (unfortunately) filling a roughly Twitter-sized hole in my life. I’m trying to replace short-form reading with long-form reading. To that end I’ve read (at least) three books since New Year, but I don’t keep track of my reading so that’s harder.

I used to be a pretty good reader. Until my mid-30s I tried to keep at least 3 books going simultaneously. One a piece of literary fiction (example: A History of Danish Dreams) or a classic (Moby Dick), one a piece of nonfiction (The Surgeon’s Map), and one a piece of fluff (Master and Commander). I could jump between them depending on my mood.