WEDNESDAY'S WORD 3-1-06

Today's word is "Finish."

Today is the first of March. Today marks the first day I can drink again after taking the entire month of February off. By my count last year the longest I went between drinks was 12 days, so to go an entire month without feeling tempted is something I'm proud of.

The idea first came up the last weekend of January. My friend Dan had gotten blasted out of his mind with his girlfriend and some others that Saturday night and Sunday he must have been regretting it, so he came up with this idea for a month of sobreity. He called my roommate who in turn called me and we all agreed to give up drinking for the month.

-Dan's girlfriend was out within a week.
-Dan was out on the 11th.
-My roommate admits to having 4 beers over the course of the month.
-I'm the only one that made it all the way to the end without drinking.

The last weekend I went to a wedding with free beer. My friends that were attending with me said I should drink. After all, the month was basically done, and the guy that came up with the challenge had already bowed out. What was the point?

The point was and is this, you don't run a race to quit just before the finish line. It wouldn't have made any sense for me to abstain all month and then just stop because no one else was doing it anymore. It would have just been cheating myself. Like Brad Pitt says in Snatch "You stay till the job is done."

Except when he said it it sounded like "You stattle jab dane." Which might be next Wednesday's Word... if I can figure out what it would mean.