As this decade fades and a new one begins, I am up since 3:30 in the morning not sleeping. The first night of the new decade in the new 2020 year and I am already experiencing insomnia. Why in the fuck I cannot sleep tonight? I don’t know. Maybe that Starbucks coffee in the late afternoon was unnecessary? Maybe I am too excited to be here? Maybe I am just a lunatic? This did happen to me before. It always happens around the same time too, 3 fucking 30 A.M. I am turning and twisting, getting uncomfortable, getting up to pee, my brain is getting all fired up and here I am, not fucking sleeping. Instead, I am laying in my bed and having a heavy fucking riff with myself, debating on some random topic. Here I am, 3:30 in the morning, not able to sleep, having an imaginary conversation with my friend, lying in bed all tired and out of my fucking mind. Why? 

The new decade has just begun and I would like to welcome you ‘all to it. How was your New Year celebration? Did you feel a bit hungover afterward? Did you overindulge this last night celebrating and getting all cheered up about the New Year? People always do get all happy and excited about the New Years’ coming. They are ever hopeful and they wish everyone a great year and all that good shit they wish around themselves and others. And then they fucking drink themselves to death trying to make sure that all those stupid fucking wishes come true ASAP in the new year.  

Well, let me tell you something. They might come true and they might not. I guess, somebody has to do some work in order to make these wishes come true. Somebody has to make the magic work. Who that might be, right? Bragging about myself, I haven’t gotten drunk this New Year at all. In fact, one of my new year’s resolution for this year is to quit drinking alcohol at all. So, I only had one bottle of $20 French wine and I’ve been drinking it from 7 pm to about 3 in the morning. And I wasn’t drunk at all. I wasn’t even trying to get drunk for one last time. Fuck all that, I thought. I am going to be in charge of my life and I am going to make the right decisions for myself and my family. I don’t just hope that the New Year will bring me luck, money, success, and health, etc. New year or old year, this decade, that decade, it doesn’t matter to me. I am going to be in charge and work hard to make things happen. Only that way, I think, your fucking empty wishes will actually monetize and have a chance to come true. Only by hard work and a proper agenda the magic will actually happen. 

Drinking has been one of my guilty pleasures and long-time favorite indulgence and my favorite way to debunk myself or to relax, as I would put it. For whatever fucking reason, I had a lot of chances to drink a lot of alcohol in my fairly short life. When I was in school, we used to drink to get more confidence and be cooler and lose the shyness, which I always had a fucking abundance of. We didn’t need to drink much back then. Two bottles of beer made me lose enough and cool enough to be fucking confident with myself in public, at the club or something, meeting girls. Later on, in my college days, I’ve been working at the restaurant, where there was no way to work sober and we used to drink any fucking thing that passed our hands. We would buy and bring our own booze to work, we would steal booze from the clients, we would drink all the left-overs after the parties, anything that was left behind was in our bodies eventually. That kind of drinking lifestyle at the restaurant lasted for about 8 years. Now I am a father, an adult and the shit had to change. I was fucking boozing like there was no tomorrow and always thinking that I am just taking it easy, that is just to relax my body and mind. I am just chilling. That was a great excuse. By the end of the day, I was sleeping in my comfy chair with my laptop on my laps still rolling some fucking movies while I was sleeping like a drunkard not even realizing that I have passed out. Then a few hours later I would wake up from sharp pain and discomfort in my neck because it is so fucking uncomfortable to fall asleep in that chair in that weird position where my neck would bend in that unnatural shape. Then the morning would come… 

The mornings after heavy night drinking are the fucking worst. One thing that I have noticed, is that they only get worse with age. I cannot remember suffering so much from a hangover in my teenage years and early twenties as I did in my late twenties and early thirties. The first thing that I feel in the morning after is the stink on my own boozy breath which is always fucking brutal. Then my brain starts to light up slowly and I feel every fucking cell inside it is has been smashed, cracking my skull open with pain. Then as more and more lights are lighting in my brain, I start to get the guilty conscience. Why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why did I drink so fucking much? Why I am such a fucking asshole? Why? Why? Why? The question that seems so simple and yet so complicated to explain and understand with all the great details and tolerance. Nobody likes the drunks, but we all have been there at least one time or more. Everybody or most people know what it is like to be drunk. Everybody knows how does that feel. If you drink rarely, you have all your sins forgiven, but if you are getting drunk often then you are a fucking asshole-alcoholic and nobody likes you anymore, and nobody has any respect for you anymore. Everyone is telling you that you need to quit and you need help and fuck you, pal. It is hard work to be an alcoholic. 

I’ve made a lot of mistakes when drinking and while drinking. I’ve battled those crazy hangovers for years. I’ve killed so much of my brain cells that I can hardly type this blog, constantly missing the keys and mistyping shit. I’ve made a shit ton of arguments with people I shouldn’t have and I’ve looked like a fucking fool multiple times. It is only on the next morning that most of my senses came back to me and I felt like shit both physically and spiritually. There was always a good excuse though. I am tired, I am frustrated, I am celebrating, I am relaxing, I am just trying to wind down. But in actuality, I was just running away and hiding away from myself. I was avoiding reality and not doing what I was supposed to do. Or I didn’t know any better way to deal with my shit other than getting drunk. One thing you realize when you’re sober is that your problems are not going away when you are drinking or being drunk. It is just your brain taking a break from it or trying to forget and ignore the reality of life. Trying to escape. On the next day, when you sober up, all that shit still will be there, waiting on your action, on the resolution. You all have to deal with that sooner or later, and plus you’ll have to deal with that fucking hangover.  

I’ve witnessed so many lives and families ruined by the booze, including my own family. There is no way of justifying drinking and behaving irresponsibly. When your family’s dignity is on the table and you choose to pour yourself another one, you are just a fucking moron. I have been this way multiple times. That makes me a moron too. I’ve taken way too many risks and way too much shit was on the table to gamble away. Sometimes I was just lucky, sometimes I had to pay the price. We all do that at one point. We all will pay the fucking price for all of our stupidity sooner or later. How many life moments were worth remembering, how many great conversations were worth recalling, how many great people were worth treating better? I have missed them or simply I just don’t remember shit. The fucking booze will always fuck it up for you. So, I have decided to stop, once and for all. 

There were plenty of people in history that were alcoholics and still kind of great people, artists, writers and so on. Hemingway and Bukowski, the two of my most admired writers come to mind instantly. Both great prolific writers. Both were geniuses in their own way of writing. Both were raging fucking alcoholics. Hemingway was supposedly more civilized with his drinking and class, but who really knows. It is hard to imagine him waking up at 5 or 6 in the morning, still fucking drunk from last night’s drinking and trying to type “The farewell to arms” or something else. Bukowski, on the other hand, was deliberately trying to drink himself to death and living on the edge for most of his life. I am sure the drinking and the adventures that came along with it were something to write about. Alcohol on some level certainty was helping to bring more storylines to the table for both writers. I am not sure how much did that help them actually write and write well. I’ve tried myself doing some writing while drunk and it just wouldn’t go. I was just too tired, too annoyed to do it. I had so many great writing ideas and conversations to use for my writing, and stories while being drunk but I just don’t remember anything anymore. Bukowski was drinking because he thought that alcohol makes him write better however towards the end of his life when he had some health issues, he wrote sober and he admitted that actually booze has nothing to do with it. He was able to write sober just as much if not better. I personally do like his poetry from the good old drinking days. However, the novel “Pulp” written just before his death was a fucking pinnacle in his writing career proving the fact that you are either a writer or you are not, you either have a talent or you don’t, booze has no value in this definition.  

So, here is the New Year outside and the new great unknown for everyone. Would it actually be a good year as so many are hoping and wishing for? Will see. Let’s check back in about a year from now and we’ll know for sure. I sure as fuck will try to make it a good year for myself. Not by wishing but by actually doing and working hard, and constantly reaching the new heights and improving as I go along. Hard work is the key to everything. In my life, nothing came to be easy. Everything required a particular focus and attention and a lot of effort. But by the end of the day, there was a feeling of a great accomplishment and that is the best fucking feeling ever. You’ve made it. You’ve done well. I’ve tried hard and I’ve got my results. And I am ready for more. I can do more. I can do better and I will do better each and every fucking time until I cannot anymore. Happy New Year you ‘all, make it your best one yet.