TheLegendsLeague | Bryan Espiritu

As the cats and raccoons do their nightly scrapping in the parking lot behind me, I’m thinking that with only 6 days left in the BWE the real issue isn’t ‘not drinking’, it’s finding a way to do it moderately. The issue is how am I going to go back to drinking in a fashion that keeps me away from binging, keeps me from over spending at the bar, and keeps my mind out of the funnel that pours somewhere bottomless.

For years me and Los have been trying to do something like this. We’ve promised ourselves over and over again that we would cut down or that we would stop. We’d say, “I’m done with drinking after..(insert random event here).”. There would always be an ‘after’ to wait for before we would quit. Things like long weekends, birthdays, parties, or just the fact that the weather was nice, would be excuse enough for us to not slow down our binges and marathon fiascoes.

When this is all over, the likelihood of myself and Los getting smashed is pretty high. We’ll probably outdo ourselves and turn into stumbling, mumbling fools. We’ll likely have terrible hangovers the following day, shoot up out of our beds and make sure we got home safe with our wallets still kicking around and our teeth still in our mouths. I remember the days of waking up and seeing blood on my knuckles from fights or punching random things in the night. I remember sleeping behind a store near the old CP Used here in Toronto in G-Star denim, a Club Monaco bomber and a wool Lacoste sweater because I didn’t want to be in the god forsaken house I grew up in. I remember waking up naked on the couch in my moms living room with 2 empty 26ers (fifths for my Non-Canadian readers), of Bacardi and my mom just shaking her head as she walked out Monday morning for work. And worst of all, I remember loving the feeling of all of these things.

When you’re like me, there’s a lot to run from that alcohol, meds, and fist fights will get you away from. Unfortunately alcohol is the only thing out of those that I can really indulge in publicly without getting arrested. It’s warm to me. It’s natural and I’ve known it well enough since 12 years old. It hasn’t done me wrong, but it sure has steered me into wrong’s backyard many, many times.

I hope that after this is all through I can regain some control of my life outside of cold turkey quits and spicy turkey breakfast wraps from Sobey’s before work. There’s no conversation that any of ya’ll can have with me that’s going to make the probabilities of my downward slip any more or less likely. This one’s up to me.

I spent some time in AA a few years back and I learned something while I sat in on these groups:

How much I drink does not dictate whether or not I’m an alcoholic. If I don’t touch a drop for 15 years and I join the Catholic Church I am not miraculously healed of my alcoholism. It is and always will be a part of me, whether I decide to overrule the request for a Last Day celebration and stay on fruit drinks, or I buy the bar out at Revival and end up arms slung around 2 friends who throw me in a cab without money.

I will always be an alcoholic because I will always have an issue with alcohol. The real challenge here is whether I make the decision to let it consume me once more or I choose to take pride in this time spent refocusing and detoxing and maintain control over what has played a huge negative roll in my life for so many years.

Wish my clarity. Luck has no say in the experiment from here on out.

DAY TWENTYFIVE RESULTS:
Day Twentyfive Weight: 167.4 lbs.
Emotionally: I’m anticipating the BWE being over already.
Appearance: My face feels a bit meatier today. Weird. Everything else is exactly the same.
Level Of Temptation To Cheat: 6 out of 10.
Cheat Beers: 0