Impossible

There are a couple of goals that I’ve been able to achieve in the last few years that I would have once considered impossible. The first of these was to abstain from drinking alcohol for a year. The second was to consistently refrain from using the internet, youTube, apps, social media, TV etc. for extended periods of the day (a kind of dopamine detox if you like).

Sobriety

I’ve never considered myself to have a problem with alcohol, but I’ve always enjoyed a drink or two over the weekend. The reason I decided to stop drinking alcohol was because I had the sense that drinking imposed a relatively low ceiling on my aspirations. It limited my beliefs, my confidence and my productivity. I was never a problem drinker but the question I was asking myself was, if I feel 7/10 with alcohol in my life and 8/10 without it, is alcohol a problem to me. Alcohol made life feel like a strange mix of the Twilight Zone and Groundhog Day. Nothing ever seemed to move on or improve or develop. The weekend’s drinking always seemed to set my back a step that I would spend the working week trying to recover. In mid-2023 I undertook to dismantle this self-imposed ceiling. I was entirely sober for just over a year. In mid-2024 I began drinking moderately again.

In truth the benefits I gained from the year of sobriety were probably a little more subtle than I had hoped, but I certainly enjoyed the challenge. So much so that I am once again attempting an extended period of sobriety.

Prior to my year of sobriety, I had never had more than a month or two in which I didn’t drink since I was around 18. Even these short periods of abstinence were rare.

I place no judgement on mine or anyone else’s drinking. For some the idea of not drinking is in no way challenging. The point is that only two or three years ago I would have considered being sober for a year an impossibility.

Dopamine Detox

There’s an almost physical pain when you try to resist doing something that you feel compelled to do. When I first tried dopamine detox it was truly impossible. Maybe I could last a day or even a week with limited use of my electronic devices, but I was soon pulled back in to continuous, mindless scrolling or youTubing. I dread to think how many times per day I might check social media or on-line newspapers. It wouldn’t surprise me if on some days I checked an on-line newspaper twenty, thirty, maybe fifty times, in some desperate search for stimulus.

Nowadays I don’t use any devices for any reason other than work during the working day. I don’t check the weather (I have windows for that), or the sports results (I have my son for that). I still feel a slight pull, a slight compulsion (if that can even be a thing). But I can resist the pull. It’s a beautiful feeling to resist the pull. There’s a release of feelgood chemicals, I’m sure.

Beyond the very real benefit of making me feel good, this dopamine detox has other advantages. Procrastination is finally becoming a thing of the past. My ability to focus on my work has improved greatly. I can regularly indulge in deep work now and that has significant productivity and psychological benefits.

Nothing is Impossible

Today it seems strange that I ever considered sobriety or dopamine detox impossible. I’ve normalised both of these states such that it seems odd that I ever thought they might be impossible. I almost forget that I once thought of them as impossible.

But it is beneficial to remind myself that I once imagined such feats to be impossible in order to gain the belief that I can overcome the next impossible task. Surely if I can overcome the desire to drink alcohol and the desire to scroll, I can overcome the desire to say, eat junk food. The internal mechanism, and hence the solution should be the same, right?

When I feel compelled to eat junk food the feeling is absolute and immediate. Overcoming this compulsion feels just as impossible as overcoming my previous compulsions did in their moment. I forget to relate it to my previous desire for beer or social media content. But the more impossible challenges I overcome the more conditioned I feel to overcome future impossible challenges. The more I remind myself that oh yeah this feels very much like I felt when trying to give up alcohol. Why not just apply the same mindset and techniques when trying to quit junk food.

It is easy to take our accomplishments for granted or see them as no big deal. But I think we are better served by remembering just how big the challenge was at the time, so that we know we can tackle this next big challenge. It helps me to remind myself that it was once impossible, to make me realise that nothing is impossible.