Day 909 Record Keeping
Day 881 Fixed Meditation (30 min)
Day 755 Writing (2/30 - hard)
Day 295 Rowing (HIIT, 17 min, 30s:60s, 3100 m)
Day 36 Mobility/Stretching 79 (Couch stretch)
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Eating
Day 133 Pantry Check
Day 131 Food Recording
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Early to Rise
Day 64 Bacon & Water
Day 64 Sleep Recording (1|1:20/2:50|12|12:40)
Day 37 Bedtime Curfew 71
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Fantastic sleep, good wakeup.

21 Day No Alcohol Challenge Complete
The Challenge I began early this month (21 Day No Alcohol Challenge) is complete. I didn’t drink a sip of alcohol.

There were some really interesting things I learned.
1) I can have just as much of a good time drinking water or tea or nonalcoholic beverages - even late into the night.
2) It’s not really that hard here. Most places offer sparkling water, or tea, or mocktails and nonalcoholic beer. It’s pretty easy.
3) I can concentrate more on the conversation.
4) Conversation is the high, not alcohol. I gain an immense amount of pleasure just with conversation and camaraderie alone. And matting the two together isn’t necessarily a good thing.
5) I get an odd, perverse sense of accomplishment and pleasure from not drinking. I believe Nietzsche talks about this in one of his books where he talks about asceticism. He doesn’t like it and rails against it. I’ll have to look it up.
6) I lost weight. I’ve been in a long plateau with losing weight even after doing HIITs.
7) I’ve definitely spent a lot less money
8) My other former vices have definitely been itched, but it’s not as bad as I thought it was.
9) I didn’t get better sleep, which I was hoping for - my sleep actually got noticeably worse. I don’t know if that’s some sort’ve withdrawal or due to something else.
10) I binge eat much less - my nights have much more of a sense of control.

I read this interesting article today about women and alcohol:

http://qz.com/762868/giving-up-alcohol-opened-my-eyes-to-the-infuriating-truth-about-why-women-drink/

I think it’s fascinating in how we let ourselves view alcohol as a treat, as a reward, as a well deserved break for everything. In a weird way, it saturates every other form of pleasure - watch a movie? Why not indulge in a drink too? Talking with friends? Do it with a drink. Bored and want to go for a walk? Why not stop in for a drink.

There’s something really disturbing about that. I think we do this for other things like food as well. But in bleeding into other activities, I feel we dull or desensitize ourself to those other pure pleasures. Completely outside of the benefits of not drinking to this project, it’s not how I want to live life.

I don’t know if I’ll go completely sober. But I do know I want to experiment with it more. So I will be continuing the challenge for a full 30 days and see how I feel then. Today is Day 22.