For a long time I didn't much care about it: I had a single drink once a week, maybe went out with buddies on Friday nights and got pretty drunk. I drank a goo

For a long time I didn't much care about it: I had a single drink once a week, maybe went out with buddies on Friday nights and got pretty drunk. I drank a good bit during my thirties, in the way of so many 9-5 workers. Then got a little too exuberant around the turn towards forty, probably a combination of "Hey, so this is how it feels to feel good!" + self-medicating for the lingering effects of really bad childhood trauma. I'm dry as a bone from here on out. Once I got used to the feeling, and once I got into the swing of studying and exercising and fathering, I've increasingly seen the stuff as being generally more treacherous than is commonly assumed. I don't know many people older than 30 who drink regularly and are actually drinking in anything resembling true moderation. And it shows, increasingly as one grows older. So I actually feel kinda lucky to have figured it out (the semi-hard way) instead of sinking into a life of physical indolence and endless rationalizations. There are a LOT of people who are somewhere in the middle chunk of the spectrum we call "alcoholism", a lot of people with really good jobs who would be a LOT happier right now if they didn't have to obey the rule about "never before 7". It's just the nature of the thing: it tends to make itself more and more important as time goes by.