I went solo camping last fall, had a few sips by the fire before I went to bed, and woke up with a nasty headache. I don’t remember drinking that much, but 55-year-olds don’t process alcohol like we used to.

As I drove home feeling like garbage, and angry, I decided to take a year off. I’m now into month #7 of no booze, and from time to time will be blogging about some of the things that have come up in this journey.

One of the most recent is freedom; not freedom from alcohol, but the feeling of freedom, i.e., believing that I’m unencumbered by boundaries, limits, and expectations that make my life seem like a prison.

That’s how I felt when I first married. When the kids came along, the walls grew higher, and closer. For me, the rigors and requirements of good, healthy relationships have always been difficult. There’s nothing wrong with marriage and parenting, just something wrong with the way I go about it.

As I get older, it’s gotten worse, and doesn’t look to be getting any better. If I want any quality of life in my 70’s+, I’ll have to exercise and pay homage to so many other health related boundaries, feeling less free than I ever have.

I didn’t feel any lack of freedom as a child, or a teenager, or a young adult. Even in my years of ministry leadership, a chapter that was full of requirements and heavy, heavy expectations, I felt like the world was open for business; no limits to what I could achieve, experience, learn, gain. Back then, when I looked out at the horizon, it was full of hope.

I rarely drank.

Regardless of how it happened, or the many contributing cosmic perpetrations, this loss of freedom is one of the biggest losses I’ve suffered as an adult. It’s heartbreaking, now in my face since the rum’s gone.

If you’re a moderate-to-heavy drinker, you know how it feels to cozy up to a few fingers of quality bourbon at the end of a hard day. For those of us who are struggling to feel free, nothing hits the spot like this. It’s fast, easy, simple, and a staple of American culture. Few will judge you.

It works.

Illusion Lament

Alcohol doesn’t make you free, it only makes you feel free and, honestly, that’s all I care about these days. It doesn’t matter how many boundaries hover over me, I just want to feel like I’m the one in charge, that I can do whatever I want.

Let’s be honest; nobody’s free. The only reason young folk feel more freedom than us geriatrics is because they’re more suckers for the illusion of freedom than we are. But I’m jealous. They live happy while I drown myself in whatever I can get my hands on because reality is too painful.

Our bodies run the show. They tell us when to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, et-al. They must be fed, clothed, and sheltered while in a constant state of decay, moving closer to the day when they will turn themselves off.

The corporate requirements of society and humanity’s frailty leave us constantly bumping into the fences required to keep us from imploding. If we decide instead to live alone in a desert cave, we’ll only be trading one set of boundaries for another.

We are chained to the laws of physics and nature, living with a vast expanse between our desire to move/explore/witness/experience and our ability to do so.

Etc., etc.

So excuse us when we run to booze, sex, achievement, things we can’t afford, crime, etc. because we’re desperate to feel free. The sheer volume of these pursuits is a testament to humanity’s desire here, something we have in common with all other humans, dead, alive, and yet to be born.

Free Moods

I’ve given up on the one place where I feel the most free. Now I have to go find it somewhere else.

Where? No idea.

But, for now, I have one observation.

When I’m in a good mood, I’m not worried much about freedom. In general, a good mood frees the bearer from worry, want, whatever. Freedom might be an illusion of sorts, but mood isn’t. It’s real. A good one affects everything, just as a bad one does.

So, in this interim space, I’ve decided to focus on all things mood related.

But there are a litany of internal/external mood affecters. Good moods are a complicated proposition. Are you hangry? Out of shape? Spoiled? Burned out? Rested? Mature? Hard working? Lazy? Addicted to things that make a good mood impossible? Mature? Do you have hope? Good friendships? Enough?

For me, the first order of business is the physical care of my mind. If I don’t eat right, exercise, and get enough sell, it doesn’t work as it should, and struggles to find anything to be happy about. For my mind to be in a good mood, it requires – guess what – boundaries, routine, discipline.

I’m in a no-man’s land of sorts, seeking more freedom by giving it up.

Boundaries and routine have always been my nemeses. They didn’t bother me when I was a pilot; if you don’t stick to the rules you don’t get to play. In the life I’m living now, however, the rewards/consequences aren’t as tangible, so it’s much more difficult to submit. In the coming months, I’ll be rethinking all of that.

The second order of business is the emotional care of my mind. Thoughts are like food, it turns out, and my diet is less than healthy. Judging others, refusing to forgive/reconcile, bingeing TV shows that glorify judging others and refusing to forgive/reconcile, and constantly gluing my face to a screen aren’t helping anything.

I didn’t so heartily engage these when I was a kid, arguably one of the most free-wheeling times of my life.

For now, I’m free to pursue and develop close friendships, experience the outdoors, be generous, thankful, peaceful, kind, and, because of my faith, hopeful. I’m free to let my body off its chain to do whatever it wants to, but that results in a kind of un-freedom that’s much more unpleasant than the un-freedom that comes from pursuing good things.

It’s possible that I’ll exercise the freedom to drink at some point after this booze-free year, but if I haven’t found a way to experience freedom – illusion or not – in healthy ways, on a regular basis, I might go another year.

Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash