Year in the books

So today is the day. It has been exactly one year since I gave up drinking completely. It’s been a crazy year, that’s for sure. That could be why as a blogger I have been slacking. It’s actually been 6 months since my last post. For those who enjoyed following along, I apologize. I wasn’t absent because it was something I didn’t enjoy. Frankly, it was what I looked forward to most Sunday nights. The real reason I haven’t been maintaining the “sometimes weekly” blog is because I haven’t needed it. As much as I loved sharing the struggles of my decision to quit drinking with you in a humorous way, it was my own weird coping mechanism to deal with it all. It was something I desperately needed. Probably more than any of you will ever know. It was my outlet. Last June, I was a mess. The decision to give up everything I loved was gut wrenching to say the least. Everything I knew was suddenly gone. A way of a life, the way I identified myself, and the one thing I thought set me a part — was suddenly gone. A year later, I couldn’t be happier with my decision, but let me tell you, the struggle has been real.

While I thought it would have been a year of soul searching and reinventing myself, it turns out, not much has changed. Other than the fact, I just don’t drink. Yes, my social life has taken a hit, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss or think about it at least once every day. But there’s only one way to move, and that’s forward. So if you wondering, these are a few things I have learned in my first full year of sobriety:

The postal service sucks.

No offense to any mailperson who risks their lives in the rain, sleet, or snow, but why in the hell has my acceptance letter to Hogwarts not come. I am almost 27. Not a spring chicken anymore, and if I am going to perform adequately in the wizarding world — you’d better bring me my damn letter.

Popeyes chicken is divine

Say what you will, those biscuits can change a person. And they have made me a better man.

Mornings are still awful

Hungover or not, mornings are fucking terrible. Don’t just wait to speak to me until I’ve had my morning coffee — don’t even look at me until at least after 10:00.

I really can’t dance

As a person who may be in the lowest quartile of sub consciousness, when you are completely sober, you don’t need a mirror to know exactly what you look like. I plan on changing this — more on that later.

People really don’t care that you don’t drink

This was the biggest realization. People don’t care like I thought they would. One of the hardest parts of giving up drinking for me was if people would accept the sober version of myself. Turns out, people only really care if you are an asshole or not. And being sober, I piss on a lot less furniture and take advantage of less people, so maybe I am just a nicer guy now. But that doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a passive person. If you threaten me, I’ll still kick you squarely in the dick.

So moral of the story, becoming sober didn’t rewrite the book in a new Jake Grothoff like I thought it would. Turns out, he is the exact same person. One who doesn’t care about the things he necessarily should, and one who definitely cares about things he probably shouldn’t. Being a year sober now could be seen as a milestone. But honestly, it doesn’t take a chip, a plaque, or parade for me to know that it is only the beginning in my alcohol abstinent adventure. There will always be an aspect of missing the feeling and false courage that came a long with drinking. But being scared about trying new things makes it all the more satisfying once you accomplish them.

So that is how I am going to celebrate. Do something that scares me. I am terrified to dance in public. So, to celebrate a year of being sober and the willingness to be scared, I am going to learn to dance. And by dance, I mean real dancing like my idol and dancing icon Kevin Bacon. I am not sure how long it will take, but I am going to learn how to recreate the warehouse dance scene from the Oscar worthy masterpiece — Footloose — minus the gymnast pole stuff. I think he had an extra do that for him. Since I am from Iowa, I need to add this dance to my resume. So thanks for following along as I scattered posts throughout the year. It may have been a year, but the adventure has only just begun.

Looking forward to an awesomely awkward 2015

2014 was a hell of a year. For someone who enjoys a challenge, I was given plenty of challenges to choose from. Life didn’t just give me a bag lemons; it gave me an entire tub of lemon pudding. That’s much worse then lemons if you ask me, as NO one in his or her right mind likes lemon pudding, and if you do, you are most likely a communist. Many people have said, “Where did the year go!?” as if implying the year has flown by. To be completely honest, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Ready to put it all behind me in the rearview mirror of my mini van and drive. Yes, I drive a mini van. I love it and you can all kiss my ass if you think otherwise.

So if you have been following this blog or even know me a little, then you know I decided to quit drinking. Let’s be honest, I was getting too good at it. Or bad at it, whichever way you look at it. It was the most difficult decision I had ever made. Not because I truly loves the taste of nice Guinness, but because all of the fondest memories of my adult life were tied to drinking. It’s the social aspect I’ll miss the most and now I am willingly turning myself into a Hermit crab, and to put yourself in the same sentence as crabs is never a good thing. When I first quit I was angry, petty, and childish. I truly acted like I was a marauder. Like I was the only one who was dealing with this shit and it was the worst thing to ever happen in the world was Jake Grothoff quit drinking. Pardon my French, but “Are you fucking kidding me.” That was incredibly selfish and it took something awful to make me realize that. This summer my Dad had a stroke and it scared the hell out of me. You would be lying if you said you hadn’t thought of one of your parents dying. I had thought of my Dad dying often, but not like this. In my mind, he died when I performed a perfectly executed roundhouse kick and his head fell off. It took something truly awful to give me the kick in the ass I needed to quit dwelling on the fact that I wouldn’t be drinking anymore. We all have shit we are going through. Am I angry that I honestly know I cannot be both successful and drink, hell yeah, But I am sure a lot of people are pissed that they can’t do a cartwheel and for those reading, my cartwheels are a thing of beauty. So what, most people drink, and I am no longer one of them. If you know me then you know how much I like being different anyway, so the transition shouldn’t be anything but seamless.

Now on to the year 2015, it’s going to be a hell of a year (a hella-good year). Nearing month eight, drinking and being around drinking is still weird. I think it always will be a bit. I made it a priority early on to not avoid it, as that would be letting it get to me. When going to dinner with friends or family at a place that serves alcohol (which is everywhere) you have to show it doesn’t get to you. I would describe it like running into your ex. Your heart is beating and you are a bit terrified, but you act completely over confident to show them how well you are doing. Your heart pounds, your palms get a bit sweaty, and the waitress/waiter finally comes to you for your order. In a moment of completely false confidence, you act as if you are giving the Inaugural Address becoming the President of the United Sates and you let out a mighty roar to announce to the entire restaurant, “I’LL HAVE THE ICE TEA MADAM!” 

The same goes when others familiar with your situation order a drink around you. They feel awkward in a sense, of ordering it around you, but don’t want to make it awkward by not ordering a drink to treat you differently. I compare this to co-workers going #2. Play this in your head. You are walking through the office with a co-worker a few steps ahead of you. They veer off into the bathroom and you go take care of some things. It can be anything such as: making copies, making some coffee, or conducting painstakingly awkward small talk in the break room. As you leave 6 to 9 mins later, you pass the same bathroom. Of course, out walks the person who went in earlier. Now the most awfully awkward thing has happened. They know, that you know they were taking a poop. Just when things could not get any more awkward the worst thing imaginable happens.......you lock eyes. While it may seem like an eternity, you only lock eyes for half a second tops, but your brains connect and then it is completely clear. Now you know, that they know, you know they took a poop. If you do not feel awkward in that situation, then you might want to check your pulse. Hell, if I never encountered any awkward situations, I wouldn’t have anything to write about. There is no way to avoid these awkward situations so there is no sense hiding from the awkward situation of being around alcohol.  Thanks for reading in 2014. I hope your 2015 is as good as mine is going to be.

PS. I am going to feel a hell of a lot better tomorrow then you

This is really hard!

I was a bit unrealistic from the start. I knew this would be difficult, but I vastly underestimated the extent of this challenge of quitting drinking. This is something I was completely unprepared for. To be blunt…… this is really hard.

I knew it would take a little time to get used to, but optimistically, I figured a couple of months top. Realistically, I am not even close to being used to or 100% comfortable with being sober. On a scale of 1- John Stamos, Not drinking is unequivocally the hardest thing I have ever been tasked with. You may be asking, why do you top a scale with John Stamos??? Well to any man, woman, or beast, Uncle Jessie is a mother f’ing ten! So yes, quantifying the difficultness of not drinking can be put on par with the looks of a Greek yogurt spokesperson that may be the most graceful aging person in history. You get the point, it is really freaking hard.

For the math people who enjoy counting, I have now been sober 5 months…..

(Awkward silence)……

(Crickets)…..

This is where you start clapping turds.

Thank you, thank you! Back to the blog.

Not to toot my own horn, but that is quite impressive for a person with my past, so toot toot! I have experienced more change in the last 5 months personally then I have since dating back to the awkward years of puberty. I am starting to find new hairs in strange new places and my body is growing a bit more outward, but I can only attribute that to getting old. While I wish I could grow a little taller, and I wish I was a baller, but my mind is changing and not my body. Change was inevitable and I am a completely different person then I was 5 months ago and it is starting to become noticeable.

Friends and acquaintances say, “ Dude you’ve changed.” They’re right, I have. I’d love nothing more then to be able to not drink and step right in to the social settings I used to frequent and be the life of the party, but I can’t. I wish it were fun for me to go out all hours of the night with everyone else around me intoxicated, but it’s not. And most certainly, I wish I the fact that I decided to stop drinking didn’t change things, but it does. It’s nothing less then devastating. In no way am I judging people for going out and having a good time using alcohol. I have not become a person who is going door to door and preach on the adverse effects of alcohol and want to change your lifestyle to conform to mine because I have found some new righteous path. I want to drink! I want to party! I want to be right there with all of you as the life of the party, but I cannot and will not do it anymore.

That was the hardest part of stopping. Knowing I would lose the good times with a lot of friends. I will be completely honest when saying, I cried when I came to the decision of quitting. I cried the day after too. But I promise I did not cry on day three. I pulled my shit together, fried a pound of bacon, and ate it all. I dried the tears off my man card, and put that puppy back in my wallet. I’ve identified that I cannot continue to party and get to where I want to be happy in life. I’d like to still be a crazy partier and please everyone, but I have to finally be selfish and do what’s best for me.  So, I want friends and family to know that nothing has changed between us. I know it may sound like a cheesy break up line by saying it’s not you….it’s me, but in all reality it is me. We’re not breaking up. I am just telling you, I can’t be the Jake I once was, but I hope you can get to know the Jake I now am. There are only three things you need to know. The same goes for sober, as I was drunk; don’t trust me with your phone, don’t let me hold anything made out of glass, and I fart a lot after I eat ice cream. Other then that, I think we’ll get along just fine.

Looking Forward

So far, much of this blog has been devoted to my current struggles and the moments leading up to my decision to refrain from the use from alcohol forever. Wow, when I say it like that, the word “for-ev-er” is more powerful then any curse word or expletive that I learned while holding tools for my dad as a kid.

(If you don't know what this movie is. Don't tell me. It will just anger me)

Since much of the time on this blog from here on out will consist of the discussions regarding these struggles, let’s take a week off from being depressing and look to the future. Having a drinking problem is something I knew for a very long time. I was well aware of the things such as: How alcohol changed me, how I drank different then my friends, and how it seemed to be the only thing I talked about were all omnipresent things that I was well aware of. I was in denial for a very long time, but “looking forward” having an alcohol problem was not the only thing I had been living in denial with. Every fiber of my being wants to hate Taylor Swift. Every hair, pour, eyelash, scab, blackhead, and dingleberry wants to hate her. I have pretended for a long time, but I can’t hate her. I CAN’T. She is so catchy and if you pretend not to know every word to every one of her songs, then you are crazy and most likely telling a boldfaced lie. Well, I’m not drinking anymore and so what, I have no find new hobbies. I am going to keep cruising. I can’t stop, won’t stop moving. It’s like I got this music in my mind saying, “ It’s gonna be alright.” Looking forward, I have time to do whatever I want, including quoting pop stars. So, I have to live with a problem, that's fine. I'll just have to SHAKE IT OFF.

Looking forward, I am going to have a lot more time on my hands. I wonder how much time in my still kind of young, not quite graying life have I wasted consuming alcohol. I honestly do not know. If I were to try and quantify the amount of time and then put into words, the following thing is what pops into my mind:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Moments so dear

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

Six hundred minutes

How do you measure-measure a year

Now I don’t know, and actually the amount of time could be much more then said in the crappy ballad performed by number of artists including that dork Donny Osmand to becoming even more popular on the Broadway smash Rent. So the moral of the story is, I will have a lot of time. A lot of time to do anything I choose. From traveling to India, to learning how to sew maybe, and definitely avenging the embarrassing defeat from a few weeks ago and kicking the little red head girl's ass in the next piano recital. Oh, and I guess I could focus on my career a bit. Like I have noted in previous posts, I don’t really know what I like, but Looking Forward, I have a lot of time to figure it out.

I am not getting any younger. So looking forward, maybe the fact I am consuming less calories, this is the time to get my ass to the gym and get those coveted washboard 6 pack abs. Just kidding, PIZZA. Ok so the 6 pack is out of the question, but perhaps I could eat a few more vegetables instead of replacing my spoon for cottage cheese with a Dorito because then I can eat everything and not have to do dishes. I realize how it sounds when I say it aloud. OK, so I won’t devote my life to fitness, but looking forward, I am excited to use the energy I expended to refine my skills in drinking to do whatever is it is I want.

I don’t know what life looks like looking forward, but I am excited to see what it entails. I am still trying to fill that void in my life, so finding new things to do has been fun. Hey, if you think you have discovered the way to build a time machine, hit me up and let’s do the damn thing. I figure the amount of time and effort I spent being the best drinker I could be will ultimately make it easy to excel in any task I choose, from making spoons made out of Doritos to building the first time machine. I know many of our lives are different and the majority of you don’t struggle with alcohol like I do, but I challenge all of you to try something crazy and new and see how great it feels. In closing, I am very much looking forward to the new path of my life, but seriously, if any of you want to build a time machine I am all in.

Getting comfortable being uncomfortable

There are a few life-changing moments in every person’s life that will never be forgotten. First and foremost, a person will never forget the exact moment they lose their Virginia license plate.  Hold up, I know exactly how all you heathens finished that sentence in your mind and your mother’s would be absolutely ashamed of you. Don’t worry I’m not judging you, but your mind assumed I was talking about the incredibly, painstakingly awkward time of your first sexual experience. I am going to go out on a limb here, but I bet that most of you people ended that sentence with virginity. You assumed what I was going to say and in most instances you would have been right, but this time you were not. We are all at times guilty of assumptions and I am definitely included. I assumed that I’d be able to continue partying and living a careless lifestyle while being both happy and successful. Took me awhile to realize it, but I couldn’t. Being that I “assumed” alcohol would always be in my life, I didn’t really make plans for how to live without it. Right now, I don’t know what I am doing.

I know the reason I gravitated to partying so hard was it took away the feeling of awkward. It gave me the superhuman ability to pretend that I was an uber confident person who didn’t struggle with his own insecurities. It transformed me from an awkward duck to a magnificent swan. It allowed me to step into the transformation chamber and turn from Steve Urkel to Stefan Urquelle. (That was a reference for anyone who grew up in the 90’s.) I drank so hard because I thought people liked my drunken alter ego more then they liked the real me, and frankly I liked the drunken guy better too. That’s when I knew I had to stop. It shouldn’t take a six-pack for someone to feel like they can actually act like themselves, or the way others want them to act. I am an awkward duck and I need to embrace it. There is no question I am a bit out of my groove and I need to right the ship. I will have to swallow my pride and probably ask Stella and see how she got her groove back, but I’m excited to get my mojo back.

 It’s a proven fact that the best life experiences are generated well outside your comfort zone, so starting now; I need to start doing things that make me feel uncomfortable. It won’t be easy, but I’ve got to bite my lip and give her hell. The following items are things I have to do to prove to myself I can:

1.     Approach a complete stranger and tell her she’s beautiful.

This will be the absolute hardest thing to do. Liquid courage is a real thing and trust me, diet Dr. Pepper does not help. It will almost certainly end in failure, but I gotta do it. Not sure how, especially since I am not spending so much time at bars hitting on girls of greater or equal than inebriation. I don’t know what to do! Do I do it at the grocery store? Does one just comment on the product their buying? Girl’s shop at Trader Joes right? This is how I envision the disaster going:

–      Hello,

 I see you are buying coffee. I drink coffee too. My name’s Jake. By the way you’re beautiful….I am going to go crawl in a hole now.

Definitely need to work on this a bit. Why can I just write them a poem? That is much easier then actually approaching and talking to a beautiful stranger, but I have to give it a shot

2.     Do the thing you said you would always do, but never made time. Even if it is really freaking embarrassing

This I have already started. I always wanted to play piano, but never made the time and figured I was too old.  Well I started lessons. Actually had my first recital this weekend and it was a disaster.  I didn’t want to go play in front of people in the first place, but this is time to feel uncomfortable right? Boy, did this make me feel uncomfortable. I have never been more nervous in my life. If you ever think you feel out of place, trying playing at a piano recital with a bunch of 8 year olds when you are 26. Oh, and you are wearing a tuxedo. Apparently kids don’t dress for the occasion anymore. I may not have been the best piano player, but definitely won best dressed.  Besides already being incredibly nervous and the fact my parents and friends made the trip to see me in action, I forgot my sheet music! My freaking music! This is how some would say, “I was F’d in the A”.  Not only were all of these things making my palms very sweaty, I had to play a few spots behind a little red head girl who blew off the roof. This girl should be on Ellen. She may be a direct descendent of Beethoven himself. As soon as she played, all of my friends just looked at me with eyebrows raised. This definitely did not make me any less nervous. Well I finally played, forgot all my notes, and had to restart like 10 times. I was incredibly embarrassed and definitely outside my comfort zone, but it didn’t kill me. I wasn’t even close to good, but I survived being uncomfortable and realized I can do this. Oh and Red……, I am coming for you at the next recital in spring biotch!

3.     Be Honest about how you’ve changed                  

Alcohol made it really easy to be relatable to everyone. That includes complete strangers, old friends, and even new acquaintances. Drinking made it very easy to just agree with everyone and relate on things, while possibly hiding how you really felt. People change and honestly I have changed a lot. I’m not talking about being relatable to the point where you are like, “sweet affliction shirt bro”, but just affirming who you are. I may be an awkward duck. A person who can’t dance, can’t even spell cool, and does things their own way. You really don’t realize you are trying to be something you are not until you stop. And you realize no one cares. Your friends and family like you for the weird awkward duck you are, not the drunken alter ego you develop when drinking. Hey, they may not understand why you pick up the piano in your mid twenties, but they’ll show up to your recital and let you know how much better the little red head is.

I have to start confronting uncomfortable, as I don’t have the six-pack to help. I have no idea what I am doing. I have no clue, but honestly I am having a blast figuring it out.