The 7:41 p.m. problem

Everyone braces for the craving. The craving is loud, and loud things are easier to fight. What nobody warned me about was 7:41 p.m. on a Wednesday, dinner done, nothing on, nothing due, and a kind of flat static where the evening used to be.

Drinking had been my punctuation. Take it out and the sentence just runs on.

What worked

Not willpower. A list, written in advance, of eleven things that take between five and forty minutes. Walk the long block. Wash the car badly. Call my brother. Repot something. The list existed because 7:41 p.m. me could not be trusted to invent an idea.

If you are in the flat part right now: it is not a sign you chose wrong. It is what a life sounds like without an anaesthetic in it. It fills back in. Mine did.