My last drink was a Varsity Hop Devil draft, consumed with a friend at a local watering hole as a celebratory conclusion to Father’s Day.

The five-week abstinence in which I have engaged since then is a significant factor in my slowly shrinking stomach. But that wasn’t my sole reason to cease tippling for a while.

It was getting a little too easy to have the extra glass of wine at dinner and the extra beer after putting the girls to bed. That led to the extra slice of cake for dessert and the extra helping of pre-bedtime chips.

And, of course, it led to too many mornings of sluggish awakenings, sagging motivation, and cloudy thinking.

Exactly zero of those things are good for creativity. Well, for my creativity, at least. Hemingway and Fitzgerald may have written seminal works while plastered; the Beatles may have changed music while tripping on LSD. Me, I’m neither talented enough nor unencumbered enough to create consistently while hung over, let alone under the influence.

My break from booze, then, is a wonderful chance to clear the toxins from my body–and my mind. My energy is higher, my productive time more expansive. There are empty pages to fill, and I have a clear head ready to work.

My sobriety will end in early August, when I get together with my brother and a few friends for a much-needed guys’ weekend. There will be a ballgame, a movie, lots of undoubtedly unhealthy eating, and, I’d wager, more than a little bar-hopping.

I will indulge that weekend, but my hope is that nearly seven weeks of diet ginger ale and club soda with lime compel me to realize that the life I want to live and the work I want to do are more easily accomplished when the sunshine seems sharper, the air crisper, and my body, mind, and soul healthier. | DL