My Path to Sobriety

How a kind but ill-informed nurse convinced me to quit drinking

Every time I get a new medication, I Google them as soon as I get home. I need to check for all the possible interactions and frightening side effects. This is not a compulsion. It is something I learned the hard way.

Why I Stopped Drinking

Anyone who has known me socially over the last three decades knows I have always been a big beer drinker. While I would diminish the struggles of alcoholics by claiming that label, I certainly drank more than my fair share. I only mention this to inform you that when I suddenly quit drinking last year, it took everyone I know by surprise. Beer was part of my social identity. It sounds sad even to type that, but the default plan with friends was usually, “Let’s meet for a beer…” It still creates social friction, as nearly a year later, some people still try to convince me to “Just have one” with them at gatherings.

Drinking Beer Over the Years

The Why

On April 27th, I visited a new doctor to try to get to the bottom of some issues I had been dealing with. As I am in Japan, and my Japanese is not up to par for discussing medical and mental health issues, I arrived with a two-page document of all of my “symptoms and issues” in bullet points to share with the doctor. I also had this translated into Japanese for him via DeepL and ran it by my wife for a ‘native check.’

After discussing my documents, providing elucidating examples, and some family history, the doctor asked for my current medications. He took a look and suggested we make some changes, so I returned to a private waiting room (nice touch) and waited for the nurse to arrive with my new prescriptions. Upon receiving new meds, I would always ask two questions:

1. Can I ride my motorcycle while on these meds?

2. Can I drink beer while on these meds?

When I put these questions to the nurse, she went off to check and came back and told me to use my own judgment regarding riding the motorcycle, as one or two of the meds could cause drowsiness. With regards to beer, she said drinking a bit was fine.

I switched to the new meds the next day, the 28th, and had a beer when I got home from work that night around 18:00. I had another beer with dinner, took my ‘after dinner’ meds, and had two more beers in the next 90 minutes while working on the computer. That did not seem like an unreasonable amount of beer for me over three hours; however, when I went to throw out the fourth beer can, I could barely stand. I knew it was not right, and in reflection, I should have asked my wife for help, but instead, I decided to go to bed. I moved my way to the bedroom, one hand on each wall the whole way, and I do not recall getting into bed. I slept like the dead and awoke the following day at 06:00.

I nearly fell down the stairs that morning, went straight to the sofa, and collapsed. I tried to text my wife to tell her to call into work as I could not stand, but I could not even do that. I had to call her.

One of the meds was a version of benzodiazepine, and I do not recall the other med, but when I Googled them both later, neither should be mixed with alcohol.

My nurse: “Drinking a bit (with alprazolam) is fine.” Malpractice?

Scared Straight

Essentially, I survived the fatal celebrity cocktail—alcohol and benzos—which has contributed to numerous celebrity deaths in the last few decades. After that, it was pretty easy to quit drinking. The four beers I had were not only multiplied by the benzodiazepines, but by the other medication as well, so I count myself damn lucky to be here. Staying sober after that has been quite easy.

I soon learned the incompetence of the nurse was a reflection of the doctor, so I am no longer on either of the medications that led to this near disaster. I moved on from him and changed my meds again but decided to stay sober anyway. The incident occurred just five weeks after I became a grandfather, so my go-to excuse for not drinking when pressed by friends at social events is, “I quit for health reasons. I want to participate in my granddaughter’s wedding someday.” They have a hard time arguing against that.

Insult to Injury

In the last few months, my favorite local microbrewery has been in the process of moving their brewery and retail location into my small village.

石見麦酒 | Iwami Bakushu

A year ago, it would have been a dream come true to have this local beer on tap just a six-minute walk from my house, but now it is an amusing temptation. I know the people who run the brewery but have not visited the new location in the local train station yet. I hope they were not, based on past experience, counting on me for a large part of their sales…

Closing Thoughts

Life is an endless supply of lessons, but the longer you ignore them the harsher they become. I had numerous other times in my life which probably should have convinced me to stop drinking, or at least to drink less, but I wasn’t paying attention. It took waking up to the fact that I probably should not have woken up on April 29th, 2023, to convince me to stop drinking. Ironically, it was probably my history of drinking which gave me the tolerance to survive, but that is not the lesson to take away from this.

This has me wondering about what other lessons in life I have been ignoring, and how to avoid life’s repeated and increasingly harsher attempts to teach me go too far. Maybe it is the slow increase in the number of aches and pains, my failing eyesight, or something else. Either way, I am trying to keep myself open to these lessons before they become too dire.

What is life trying to teach you right now?

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