March 1st, 2013 marks the two year anniversary of me no longer smoking or drinking.
Let's recap shall we?
Previously, on Stefan with an F: I went sixteen months stone cold sober. To commemorate those sixteen months of no smoking/no drinking, I had a glass of wine on my birthday last year in mid June. That next Friday my boss bought me a glass of champagne to celebrate my birthday/company anniversary, followed by a Planter's Punch on Fire Island that Saturday and then four drinks on Pride Sunday -- which made me sick for 3 days and I swore I would never ever drink again. Until two months later when I got back from a week in the Hamptons in late August and met a friend for happy hour and had about 8 beers over the course of five hours and was again sick for three days and then decided that I really just could not drink anymore. And I haven't. But for all intents and purposes, I basically stopped drinking two years ago.
As for smoking, it has literally been two years. I had my last cigarette on February 28th, 2011 and have never looked back.
I remember how proud I was last year commemorating my one-year anniversary of no smoking/no drinking. I was counting down the days, marking them off one by one. I felt accomplished, like I had achieved something HUGE. This year I almost forgot about it. And not because it's any less important to me, (because once I realized that my "anniversary" was tomorrow I realized I needed to sit down and write something about where I am on this crazy journey I set off on), but because it's become so completely normal to me that I don't think of it as anything to call attention to. I don't smoke or drink anymore. What's the big deal, right?
Yeah, easier said than done, that's for damn sure.
People always (and I mean ALWAYS) ask me why I stopped drinking. Nobody EVER asks me why I stopped smoking. In fact, most people don't even care to acknowledge the fact that I used to smoke at all. They seem to always zero in on the no drinking. Which is strange since I very clearly remember how often people used to criticize/scold/abuse me about my smoking habit. The simple story is: I stopped drinking (originally) to help stop smoking. They went hand in hand. The no drinking was only supposed to go one month to help me kick the smoking habit. But one month of no smoking/no drinking had me feeling so great that I coerced myself into going for three months of no smoking/no drinking, which then became a year-long challenge to see how amazing I could feel and then suddenly after a year it just became normal everyday life.

I guess this year the anniversary of me not smoking or drinking isn't quite as joyous. It's been three months since my relationship ended, and though I now know the relationship wasn't meant to be and that every day I feel like I get a little better than the day before, it's still hard to hold my head up high and remind myself that staying out of the bars is a good thing [for me]. My recent Friday nights have consisted of leaving work, going to the gym to lift heavy weights, cooking dinner for myself at home and watching tv. Sometimes it would be nice to just leave work on a Friday, go to the bar, have a vodka tonic in one hand and a Marlboro ultra light in the other and have those be the heaviest things I lift all day. Just spend the evening hanging out with friends, letting the week melt away, forgetting that I'm single again. But being in bars sober and single, well, you just feel like you're the last one being picked for a dodge ball team: odd man out.
Because though I'd like to think meeting someone is going to be easier now that I've got my head cleared up and my priorities "all figured out," it's really become all-the-more difficult because I've taken out one of the biggest environments for finding another boyfriend. Gay New York is all about going out to bars and meeting up with friends and having cocktails and dancing to that new amazing song and meeting new people and staying out too late and making out with that hot guy you were flirting with all night and the next morning when you wake up hungover, you meet all your friends again for brunch and have cocktails to help level you out from the crazy night you had while you laugh about the silly stuff you did, trying to remember the name of the guy you made out with.
It's a lonely life when you're sober in Gay New York.
But here I am, smoke free and drink free, two years later. Something I NEVER thought I would be able to say. I put my mind to it and I did it. I continue to do it every day. It's probably been (and continue to be) one of the single hardest things I've done and I am proud of myself for achieving it.
I hope my future husband appreciates all of my hard work. :)
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