I’ve always thought I had a pretty good handle on balancing my work and home life. My motto has always been “work to live, not live to work”. My dad was a workaholic and although I think I inherited his strong work ethic, I’ve always been about playing hard!

It just dawned on me how much I have been using alcohol to enhance my home life. I’m beginning a 90 day program called the PATH with This Naked Mind today. After I had that intense craving, I felt like I needed to get a better handle on my addiction. Because the craving happened during one of our camping trips, a place where there was ALWAYS drinking, I feel I need to continue to learn ways to continue to enjoy my days without drugging myself.

One of my memories popped up on FB from 9 years ago of one of our many backpacking trips to the Trinity Alps. There I was, relaxing after probably 6 miles of hiking with a 40lb backpack, with my wine in hand. I look back at these photos, ALWAYS with wine in hand, and think “damn, what a shame!” All those times I could’ve had a clear head and truly be able to appreciate and REMEMBER the great outdoors and these amazing trips, but, nope, I was fogged over with alcohol.

I’m still really trying to figure out what I want to feel about alcohol in my life. Do I want freedom? Do I want peace? Do I want it to be inessential in my life? There’s a lot of talk about having freedom or being free from alcohol. For some reason that doesn’t resonate with me. I keep going back to my list of “whys”. #8 was I associate alcohol with all the good things in life, i.e., vacations, celebrations, camping, etc.

This is how I want to feel about alcohol. It does NOT enhance my life. It does NOT make my life more enjoyable. Over the past 6 months, I am discovering this to be true. And the more practice I have at living AF, the more I am realizing how fun I can have being sober and the more I am realizing that alcohol has been doing the exact opposite. Alcohol is NOT essential in my life.