Entering Las Vegas

[Engine]

This journal is a chronicle of an experiment that I am conducting on myself. I have decided to quit drinking for one week. If you didn’t catch it the title is a reference to the film, Leaving Las Vegas, in which Nic Cage plays a man who has decided to move to Las Vegas with the express intention of killing himself with alcohol. He estimates that he can do it in about one month.

I never drank anywhere near that heavily, or with the intention to end my life, but I have been a habitual drinker for over four years. In fact, if any of you MB members have ever been amused by, irritated by, confused by, bored by, or even noticed any of my posts here, I can probably thank my alcohol habit for helping me write them. My daily intake ranges from a lot to way too much. I have no intention of quitting drinking for good, just to break the habit and then proceed to drink like a normal person. I figure one week is enough to see what happens without alcohol in my life.

The reason I decided to do this is not profound. It was simply that I found myself short of cash recently and my first thought was about how I was going to fund my next supply of spirits. I had some money coming in a couple days so I decided that I would just wait until then, and that sparked the idea of the week-long trial.

Yesterday was day one, and the previous night the last song that I heard was “I’m Gonna Stay” by The Moxies. I had never even heard of the band – the song randomly came on the radio when I was driving, thinking about the week ahead of me.

The song’s protagonist is a man who swears that he won’t let his girl go even though he’s been told that she’s no longer interested in him. I immediately thought of the guy as alcohol and myself as the girl, wondering how my mind and body will treat me after telling alcohol that I need my space. We’ll see. It’s also a pretty good song that I’m glad I discovered. When I got home I looked it up and discovered that, ironically, the b-side to the song’s record is called “Drinkin' Wine”

As today is day two, I’ll recap day one now and submit day two’s entry later tonight. I woke up pretty early and quickly decided that I would do nothing important or stressful because fatigue set in. I tried to do some work and listened to Swordfishtrombones by Tom Waits. It was an interesting choice because as I listened, I realized what a great album it is for drinking to.

Soon enough I decided to simply lie on the couch and watch Netflix all day. I watched a bunch of movies that I don’t even recall right now. I do remember watching one called “The Ledge” which stars the guy from Sons of Anarchy. I kind of liked the movie but was pissed off about what a one-trick-pony actor Charlie Hunnam is. Also, he’s been a working actor in America for at least 15 years, I think, so why in hell can’t he manage a decent American accent?

I didn’t really experience any cravings but I felt like shit all day. I intend to update this journal daily in order to keep myself on track. I just said that there will be at least seven entries so if there are not then I have fallen off the wagon and failed my test. I’m using this week to get my general shit in order on top of the alcohol cessation so I do not intend to fuck up. We’ll see.