Deciding not to drink was one of the scariest decisions I’ve ever made in my life, and it’s so dumb, because it’s a completely internalized fear.  Quitting smoking was technically harder for me to do, but making the decision itself was easy.  No one wants you to die of lung cancer.  Quitting smoking isn’t some failure on your part… it’s the best possible decision you could be making for yourself, or for your health.

Quitting drinking, though, is an admission of having a problem, and no one wants to do that.  The reason I don’t drink alcohol anymore isn’t because I think it’s stupid—I have a problem with alcohol, and the problem isn’t that I have a moral qualm with it, it’s that I can’t have just one drink.  My own relationship to it was unhealthy and we had to break up.

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