tl;dr I'm quitting drinking forever. Yes, really.

I’m not really much for the 12 Steps. I guess it’s not much of a surprise to hear this from me. Many of y’all know of their religious origins, but if you actually read the original 12 steps, you’ll find that they were not just slightly religious, it was a full-blown whack-job mantra of worship with very little basis in reality. Sure, the APA uses a more revised and “secular” version of the list now, but I really don’t understand why they’re using something that evolved from that nonsense instead of scrapping it entirely and creating their own thing. It even still uses creepy terms like “higher power”. I don’t think so, Tim.

Maybe I’ll do the making amends for past mistakes thing, though, as that did make for an amusing episode of Seinfeld. For the most part, this’ll have to be done in private… but there is one little mistake I can air that has affected you, the readers of this blog, and possibly my comics… and that is the fact that I haven’t been drawing any goddamn comics.

It’s safe to say, at this point, that the more recent problems in that area have been caused by my drinking. I was slowing down quite a lot all ready, but the recent unplanned hiatus had less to do with me needing a real break than it did with me being either too drunk and/or too sleepy to want to want to work on anything.

And soooo I have stopped. The first step in the current version of the steps is “admitting that one cannot control one’s alcoholism, addiction or compulsion”, which is where I am stopping because of course I fucking can. As of Thursday night I have quit. I won’t be drinking any alcohol from that point on, until a) I drop dead, or b) something so catastrophic happens to society that spending the rest of my short life shitfaced is the best option. This is pretty much my plan.

Now, some of you who have been following this blog for 100 years may be thinking… “But superhappy, as I recall, you said you’d quit before, right? Definitely on this blog and at LEAST once on your twitter so I dunno”, and fair enough. And fair enough. I can’t even say I’m 100% sure that I can quit on my own. But there’s a reason why I am still PRETTY confident about it, and it has to do with the differences between when I said I’d do it then, and when I’m saying it now:

Back then, I did not believe that my drinking was causing problems in my life. I also did not have 3 psychoanalysts all agreeing that it was causing problems and telling me such. Most of all, I know now that this has to be an all-or-nothing thing.

My earlier attempts to quit were with the hopes of no longer being addicted, but still being able to do it every once in a while… like perhaps at a party, or when out with friends… perhaps a bit of vintage tequila to celebrate the success of a comic which I’m sure will happen someday eventually.

But as it goes in the Bryan Adams song… once I pop, I can’t stop. If I have any kind of alcoholic drink at all, it is a guarantee that I’ll continue drinking nonstop until I pass out. Always, with no exceptions. And while in the past, falling asleep could put a stop to the drinking for a day or two, that grew to be less and less the case in the recent years, where a fun night of drinking would often lead to me waking up and grabbing my bottle of tequila right on the bedside drawer. Drinking in the morning means drinking for the entire rest of the day. And so on. I know this is the very definition of addiction but well, I refused to believe it, until now.

So that’s why I know it has to really actually be FOREVER this time. None of this “just a shot or two to calm my nerves” or “It’s been a month, surely if I try drinking again it won’t be like before!” F . O . R . E . V . E . R

So yeah, as much a know it’ll suck, I’m just going to stop. I’m basically giving myself only one strike too, so if I EVER stumble on this in any way, I’ll be heading off to group. I don’t think I’ll have to though, and beyond just me thinking I’m hot shit and can do it on my own, well… I’m not really on my own. Aside from my friends who will be helping out, I’ve got y’all as well. It’s the modern age and all, so I’ll be letting everyone know how I’m doing, possibly in comic form. There’ll be tweets, updates, what have you. And don’t think that, should I fall off the wagon, I won’t be coming here to post about it. No, having y’all shake your head and sigh at me will be the first thing on my mind.

I first started drinking at around age 30, and I did so to help me get some sleep for an upcoming convention. At the time, the drinks only came up to fill such needs, but eventually I figured out how much fun it was. It steadily ramped up to tequila up to and including 3 times a week, and settled there until Girly ended, and the crippling depression that ensued resulted in 3 time a night being the bare minimum and every night of the week becoming more common. And well, it basically went on an incline until we got to the previous two weeks, where I spent each day spending all day and all night drinking (including during a weekend family trip), except for the one day I was simply too sick to continue.

A lot of film historians agree that Ed Wood’s movies could have been a lot better than they were had he not had an alcohol problem. It makes the story of Plan 9 a lot sadder, knowing this, and I’d really rather not my own story turn out that way. Life is too short and I really need to cram as many kickass comics as I can, while I can. To paraphrase Cliff Richard, it’s the first day of the rest of my life…

And here’s to life *toasts with a glass of Pibb Zero