"Cleaning up the way I drank was more challenging. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had a richer, more rewarding relationship with alcohol than I did with all but a handful of humans. It was an inexhaustible field of study, an incandescent companion during great meals, a reliable consolation on dull ones. And it brought me close to my real friends, at least some of them, some of the time. Over time, though, the rewards had become more equivocal and harder to justify."
"They were, by this point, undeniable signs that my liver was overworked. I slept badly with all that alcohol in my system, too, and it got worse as time went on. Anyone who stayed under the same roof told me my gasping and snoring weren't just loud but frightening a symptom of sleep apnea, aggravated by all that drinking. I was always tired."
Eliminating highly stimulating, insubstantial foods proved relatively easy and left only small dietary gaps that sensible substitutes could fill. Replacing starchy comforts with more nutritious options became manageable through better choices like pure buckwheat soba. Cutting back on alcohol presented greater difficulty because drinking served as companionship, culinary enhancement, emotional consolation, and social glue. Continued alcohol use produced tangible harms, including weight gain, liver strain, disrupted sleep, worsening sleep apnea with gasping and snoring, and persistent fatigue. The balance of rewards versus harms shifted toward harm, making reduced drinking necessary for better health.
Read at cooking.nytimes.com
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