Give It a Month

Home is where the heart is, not where the beer is. I'm now on Day 6 of an experiment to not bring beer home. As a former copy editor at Hazelden Educational Materials, the publishing arm of a major national drug and alcohol abuse recovery center, I know a thing or two about treatment. I also know a thing or two about relapse and addiction. It seems there is a reason why the typical treatment program lasts 28 days. It's all about building new good habits. It's about putting yourself in positive environments and figuring out new patterns where temptation is minimized.

The experiment is an extension of lifestyle changes I've already made that start with exceptional discipline at the grocery store. My goal? To have only good stuff in the refrigerator and pantry. No matter what I grab for, it will be good for me. I will not eat junk or drink junk, because I will not have brought any junk home from the store.

This isn't a diatribe against alcohol. For many people, alcohol in moderation can actually extend life. It may be OK for men to have two drinks a day and women to have one. Any more than that, however, can be a liability. A lot more can be a major problem.

It's not just the empty calories. If sugar pop is bad, sugar beer must be equally damaging. In quantity, beer can be especially damaging to health. Bingeing once a month or more can take six years off your life.

The bigger issue is, I really want to see what this Gray Seal program will do for me. And if I add 500 extra calories a day of beer, before long I will see incremental declines rather than gains. All the work — the hour a day six days a week of exercise — will be in vain.

I will give the beer-free home experiment a month. If successful, it could give me six extra years to enjoy life. A month for six years. Seems like a fair trade.