Thanks to everyone who recently subscribed, or became a paid subscriber, to Donita Reason. I am sick this week, but wanted to write something. Your support makes me feel like this is my job (a job I actually want!), so here I am.🐛
I'll be sober 1 year in 3 weeks. It's the best thing I've ever done and while I still think I'll be sippin a glass of delicious red wine in Rome or Paris one day, this year (and probably the next one too) it was the booze free world I needed to be in to reground myself, to show up for my kids and partner and I finally have a daily routine that centers Joy. I couldnt do or access any of that while I was riding the alcohol fueled anxiety train -- just how Im made. Doesnt mean I still dont think about it all the time tho -- when I do/ if I do drink again - it will be red wine. and this insane carrot juice mezcal cocktail that was one of my last drinks from this amazing Haitian restaurant here in New Orleans -Fritai. (It's the worst part of not drinking - I really enjoy a delicious cocktail. But my body and heart stopped loving the effects.) So if you don't quit drinking -- make sure to drink those extra extra extra yummy ones for me!! Sending Love. -Elysha
elysha! thank you for sharing -- appreciate that it’s all rooted in centering joy & the openness to what might change or shift. sending much love back xx
2 years sober for me! whoop whoop! (and praise be to whomever created kombucha and peppermint tea LMAO!!) XOXO.
ps. reading Tropical Gothic. I had never heard of Joaquin before. A photographer named Wawi Navarroza turned me on to him. The whole tropical gothic vibe really resonates for me. I feel it here in NOLA too...
Really relating to this, as someone who is pretty clearly not an alcoholic, but doesnt always love their relationship with alcohol. I did my college thesis on alcoholic blackouts (not a joke) and the one thing that distinguished blackouts from other drinking experiences was not how crazy people got, but how ashamed they felt. I was sober for my birthday party this year, and I was actually just as impulsive and zany as always (my husband's work partner was wearing a very cool shirt and I touched her boobs many many times), but I didnt feel like an asshole the next day (maybe I should have??). Also makes me think about Cal Newport's thing about how if you're doing to detox from digital devices, half of the work is figuring out what else you meaningfully do with your time??
yes to all of this, sarah. when i did my 100 days at the start of the year, i was also doing some of the exercises in the book "sober curious"--one involved listing elements of my "alcohol narrative" and countering each one with what i know is "my story." my first item/counter item: "it makes me more fun and bold" / "yes but i am already very fun and bold" 🤡 and thanks for reminding me that i read digital minimalism a few years ago. it's true that when reaching for my phone or a drink, what i am often dealing w is something like boredom, a desire for something meaningful
I feel like a broken record, but once again I am so connected to your writing. I feel this so much. I am an incredibly indulgent person when it comes to food, alcohol, edibles, anything to get me out of my head, or enhance things. I love how you describe it. And I often think about how you talk about food in essential labor. I’m sober-curious. Or at least enhancements-dialed-down-curious. I like the idea of the seltzer. Replacing a ritual with another ritual so the deprivation doesn’t starve you.
thanks so much for this lauren, for being connected. never starve, never settle!! seriously, though, i have been very humbled & comforted by my experiments in substitution, dialing down, and (this is a big one) delaying the gratification for another day, another time when i might enjoy it even more or have space to enjoy it for longer...
I'll be sober 1 year in 3 weeks. It's the best thing I've ever done and while I still think I'll be sippin a glass of delicious red wine in Rome or Paris one day, this year (and probably the next one too) it was the booze free world I needed to be in to reground myself, to show up for my kids and partner and I finally have a daily routine that centers Joy. I couldnt do or access any of that while I was riding the alcohol fueled anxiety train -- just how Im made. Doesnt mean I still dont think about it all the time tho -- when I do/ if I do drink again - it will be red wine. and this insane carrot juice mezcal cocktail that was one of my last drinks from this amazing Haitian restaurant here in New Orleans -Fritai. (It's the worst part of not drinking - I really enjoy a delicious cocktail. But my body and heart stopped loving the effects.) So if you don't quit drinking -- make sure to drink those extra extra extra yummy ones for me!! Sending Love. -Elysha
elysha! thank you for sharing -- appreciate that it’s all rooted in centering joy & the openness to what might change or shift. sending much love back xx
2 years sober for me! whoop whoop! (and praise be to whomever created kombucha and peppermint tea LMAO!!) XOXO.
ps. reading Tropical Gothic. I had never heard of Joaquin before. A photographer named Wawi Navarroza turned me on to him. The whole tropical gothic vibe really resonates for me. I feel it here in NOLA too...
Really relating to this, as someone who is pretty clearly not an alcoholic, but doesnt always love their relationship with alcohol. I did my college thesis on alcoholic blackouts (not a joke) and the one thing that distinguished blackouts from other drinking experiences was not how crazy people got, but how ashamed they felt. I was sober for my birthday party this year, and I was actually just as impulsive and zany as always (my husband's work partner was wearing a very cool shirt and I touched her boobs many many times), but I didnt feel like an asshole the next day (maybe I should have??). Also makes me think about Cal Newport's thing about how if you're doing to detox from digital devices, half of the work is figuring out what else you meaningfully do with your time??
yes to all of this, sarah. when i did my 100 days at the start of the year, i was also doing some of the exercises in the book "sober curious"--one involved listing elements of my "alcohol narrative" and countering each one with what i know is "my story." my first item/counter item: "it makes me more fun and bold" / "yes but i am already very fun and bold" 🤡 and thanks for reminding me that i read digital minimalism a few years ago. it's true that when reaching for my phone or a drink, what i am often dealing w is something like boredom, a desire for something meaningful
I feel like a broken record, but once again I am so connected to your writing. I feel this so much. I am an incredibly indulgent person when it comes to food, alcohol, edibles, anything to get me out of my head, or enhance things. I love how you describe it. And I often think about how you talk about food in essential labor. I’m sober-curious. Or at least enhancements-dialed-down-curious. I like the idea of the seltzer. Replacing a ritual with another ritual so the deprivation doesn’t starve you.
thanks so much for this lauren, for being connected. never starve, never settle!! seriously, though, i have been very humbled & comforted by my experiments in substitution, dialing down, and (this is a big one) delaying the gratification for another day, another time when i might enjoy it even more or have space to enjoy it for longer...