Sacrificing a Demon

On Giving Up Drinking

Today is my one year of sobriety and I feel so much better than a year ago. I watched a Jordan Peterson lecture once where he talked about sacrifice, and how life is about making sacrifices to achieve what we want out of it. How we each choose which sacrifices we are willing to make and which ones we aren’t. He said that if you stop and think about it something will immediately come to mind for each person, something you could choose to sacrifice that you think might help you become a better version of yourself over time. I immediately thought of alcohol, and though I didn’t give it up for at least another year or more, I would think about it often.

I had the desire to quit, but I wasn’t really ready to quit until a year ago. I think sometimes we humans cling to our toxic habits out of a fear of the unknown, and I think sometimes we cling to them because they stand in for actual purpose and meaning in our lives, when we are weak and without direction. There was a time when I was unmoored and the things that were standing in for me for purpose and meaning were toxic ideology, toxic habits, and toxic relationships. But mostly, I was clinging to a toxic attachment to all of the bad things that had happened to me in life, as if those things were my identity and meaning; they’re not.