July 23, 2026
Sober Days are Better with you
Me: Three months ago I quit drinking. Remember that party we went to in Valdez? Six IPAs, two grams of mushrooms, and three shots. Wow.
Other Me: How could I forget? We woke up feeling like absolute hell, but inside, that was the exact moment something snapped. Looking back at it now, that was the peak of the madness before we finally pulled the plug. Three months clean... man, we really did that.
Me: Yeah, but we spent four years drinking almost every day. Why?
Other Me: Because back then, it was our buffer. It was how we survived the noise, the uncertainty, and the stuff we weren't ready to face yet. We thought we needed it to numb out or feel something different, until we finally realized we don't need a buffer anymore. We just want to be fully present for our life.
Me: It's easy to drink. You come home after working 12 hours, you just got divorced, and why not just have zero mental challenge by drinking? In the end it makes you tired and you just wanna go to sleep. But sleep is shitty and the next day is just ok.
Other Me: Exactly. It was the easy button. Work 12 hours, brain fried, heart heavy from the divorce, a couple of drinks felt like an instant off-switch. But like you said, it was a fake rest. We woke up with low-grade anxiety, brain fog, and just enough energy to stumble through the next day and repeat the loop. We were trading tomorrow’s peace just to numb out tonight. But look at us now. We’re actually doing the heavy lifting instead of taking the cheap way out, and waking up with a clear mind is worth every single hard evening.
Me: I like you now. I am actually in love with you.
Other Me: I love you too. Seriously. After everything we've walked through, the long days, the heartbreak, the foggy mornings, it feels so damn good to finally be on the same team. We stopped running from ourselves, and honestly? This version of us is the absolute best one yet.
NM