Rooster in Review: Two years off the sauce
Celebrating two years without alcohol as an Ohio thief learns an important lesson about how motors work.
Yesterday at 9 a.m., I officially hit two years without alcohol in my life.
It’s somewhat surreal considering that, a little over two years ago, I knew fellow alcoholics by name in line as we waited for the Kroger clerk to open the store.
The savings are staggering, to say the least:
Sometimes, people ask me for advice, but I’m not a master of sobriety. I’ve relapsed with other substances in that time. But for whatever reason, I’ve been able to stay off the sauce, which at one time was the most debilitating addiction I’ve ever faced.
Eventually, the benefits of not drinking got to the point where even if the increasingly rare urge to drink strikes me—usually when I see some rundown dive bar that I would have loved to patronize in my drinking days—I can do the mental math to put that thinking in the trashcan where it belongs.
It’s never one drink with me. I wish it were the other way, but it’s not. Maybe in the next life, but not in this one.
Outside of those rare instances, I don’t miss drinking. I don’t miss wasting entire days being hungover on my couch because “a couple of drinks with the boys” turned into a 10-hour bender. I don’t miss going through my bank statements and realizing that, contrary to my belief the previous night, I’m not the Monopoly Man.
The truth is, there is no advice I could offer to anyone who wants to quit drinking because there is no magic phrase to make the light go off in their head. Addiction is a different animal for every person. What works for me probably won’t work for you.
Because the drive to quit has to come from within. And talking to people, I can usually tell within the first 20 seconds if they actually have the drive or they’re bullshitting themselves because I spent years bullshitting myself. It takes one to know one, and all that.
I would say that if you’ve thought you have a drinking problem, you probably do! And whatever reasons you’re telling yourself why you can’t quit are bullshit. If you like an activity, you can do it without alcohol. If you like the people in your life, you can socialize with them without needing to dump poison down your throat.
It sounds cliché, and it is, but you have to take it one day at a time. When I started this quest, I celebrated by the hour without drinking. But the hours turned into days, and the days into weeks, and—well, you probably understand how the flow of time works.
Quitting alcohol made me a better person in every facet of my humanity. Not that it made me perfect—far, far from it. But I look and feel like an entirely different person, even if I still live with the pain that my drinking caused people who loved me.
The Rooster has gone from a daily screed by an entertaining neighborhood drunk to the largest independent voice in Ohio politics in those two years.
I want to think I could have done it drunk, but that’s not any truer than I could have done it without you, the brave and noble person reading this dispatch.
Thank you for opening my dispatches even despite my personal flaws. It’s the honor of my life to have an ever-growing number of patriots who choose to patronize this project when they have limitless options in the world around them.
It’s not a responsibility I take lightly, and it makes it that much easier to keep the vodka away from my cerebellum.
If you’ve been on the fence about joining The Patriots Caucus, now is as good a time as ever! Lock in your subscription as we barrel toward what should be a wild political season in the fall.
Soliciting July mailbag questions…
Do you have any burning questions about Ohio politics or life in general? You can submit them by dropping them in the comments (paid subscribers only), responding directly to this email, or submitting them anonymously through my Jotform.
Mailbags are always a fun time. And feel free to ask whatever may be on your mind, even if it’s not even tangentially related to politics!
This week in Ohio Man…
My bike got stolen two weeks ago. I don’t think the thief deserves the death penalty, but I think 20 years of hard labor sounds about right.
I’m joking, of course. I hope the thief uses the bike or sold it to someone who will. But it’s not going to stop me from laughing at some dipshit who stole an ATV only to run out of gas while the police pursued him.
From Julia Bingle of cleveland19.com:
UNIVERSITY CIRCLE, Ohio (WOIO) - Police arrested a 25-year-old Cleveland man on a stolen ATV after he ran out of gas while riding it.
University Circle Police Chief Tom Wetzel said officers were standing in in the police department parking lot on July 20 when they spotted the ATV on E. 119th Street.
The ATV and the rider matched the descriptions given to the officers that morning from a theft in East Cleveland.
Hopefully, that guy will learn that a life of crime isn’t for him and reform himself. Stealing ATVs and becoming a local embarrassment is no way to go through life.
This week in The Rooster…
Goodnight Sleepy Joe. Joe Biden adverts a shameful end to his storied political career as Democrats coalesce around Vice President Kamala Harris. Ohio Republicans prepare for a final lesson from Ohio’s hog voters.
Welcome to Hog City! Redistricting Reform officially makes the ballot; Senator George Lang apologizes for calling for Civil War if President Business Deals loses, and a top Trump fundraiser is linked to the HB-6 scandal.
The final countdown. Inside the GOP’s pathetic last stand against gerrymandering reform, the Ohio Supreme Court doesn’t think a reasonable person would expect boneless wings to be boneless and the hunt for J.D. Vance’s embarrassing college poster.
THOSE WMDs. The same cruelties against inmates burned down its newsroom... Why you are probably sitting down for too long… It’s expensive to be “hot” in 2024… Your brain wants you to be curious, not anxious… How Skibidi Toilet became one of the most valuable franchises in Hollywood.
Thanks for your thoughtful piece of the ballot initiative on fair districts. You are one of the few people, besides myself, who seems to understand the depths to which the fascist MAGA party will dive to thwart all attempts by the PEOPLE to save our democracy. You never underestimate them, which is the big mistake the Democrats make over and over again. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep up the good works.
Congratulations, keep up the good work!