Why I Quit Alcohol

Sobriety starts with a warm beer.

It’s about 43 degrees Celsius, and the house is too hot. The only thing close to a breeze barely touches the front porch. I’m sitting on the doorstep, swatting away flies under a small patch of shade, protected from the scorching afternoon Spanish sun. It’s beating down, and the landscape reminds me of my tour of Afghanistan in 2007. But here, the only threats are overly drunk Spanish retirees and the occasional village bullfight.

Spanish Laneways

All the oak trees are gone, or so I’m told. They were chopped down during the rise of the Spanish Empire to build ships that would be used in the invasion of large parts of the Americas. Superhighways, wind farms, and dusty German-made cars are all that inhabit the now barren lands. Could this be considered a karmic reaction to past traumas inflicted on nations oceans away?

Spanish Summer Vibes

Octavio appears through the gate, his unlit cigarette hanging loosely from his lips as he strides up to the house, looking for my friend whose front doorstep I am currently blessing with my afternoon sweat.

Octavio is someone I was introduced to a few weeks back. He’s looked down upon by the community for his colourful past. Yet the community’s favourite form of looking seems to be sitting out in front of their small concrete apartments, walking sticks in hand, staring into the abyss of their neighbour’s brick wall. They just like looking I guess. Octavio may be out on bail for drug offences, but every day he pops into our mutual friend’s house, which is currently under construction, to help with the clay and straw bale building.

He told me that he spent ten years in prison for smuggling drugs from Colombia to Spain in the ’80s. He lived on the streets of Barcelona for years as a junkie and recently got out of prison. He proudly states that he’s only living in a house because he’s on parole, but he feels most at home on the streets—it’s his jungle. He plans to pack up his belongings like Huckleberry Finn’s bindle stick and be on his merry way once his parole is over.

At this moment, he asks me if there’s any beer. Our mutual friend always makes sure to stock the fridge with beer, as it’s easier to lure Octavio into a few hours of hard labor in return for some hoppy refreshments. I inform him that there’s beer in the fridge, but none of it is cold—only warm beer. This, of course, doesn’t faze an ex-junkie who lived out of the bins of Catalonia.

He walks into the old farmhouse, and I hear the fridge door clang open and the sound of glass bottles clinking against each other. He quickly reappears, popping open a warm Spanish beer with his cigarette lighter and taking a seat in a half-broken wicker chair.

I look at him in amazement, thinking to myself, “How can you possibly drink that? It’s 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit), and you’re drinking warm beer.”

He takes a swig, exhales with the sound of pure enjoyment, turns to me, and says, “¿Cómo digo yo?”—his favourite Spanish catchphrase, which loosely translates to “That’s what I say.”

I look him in the eyes profoundly and think to myself: Thank you!

Thank you, Octavio, for being the medicine I needed to see—the result and example of constant abuse, over and over again, of the body, mind, and spirit. I have seen alcohol destroy the lives of people close to me. The white colonial culture of Australia and much of the Western world has been plagued by alcohol for so long.

Now, don’t get me wrong, alcohol is a medicine—a medicine that is used to preserve plants or offer ancestral fermented drinks like chicha, pulque, or kombucha. It’s a liquid used to cleanse negativity and extract the maximum potential from the plant kingdom in the form of elixirs and tinctures.

Just like life, alcohol has its duality. Grapes are grapes until you make wine. One of the most sacred plants of the Americas, the coca leaf, is green and a superfood used by Indigenous groups—from powder to leaf, from the jungles to the high Andes—for millennia. The dark side comes when it’s used to create a white destructive powder. Remember that next time someone talks about coca leaf: it’s green, not white!

Coca Leaf

Hops are hops until they’re turned into beer. You get my point. But the purpose of this article isn’t to lecture people on their personal relationship with alcohol. It’s to express how, through the suffering and darkness of someone else, that reflection can be medicine and clarity for another. In this case, I was able to use that as medicine to continue on my path of sobriety. It’s important to me. I don’t want my kids growing up with a dad who drinks. I want them to grow up with a dad who eats coca leaf, plants food, takes care of the waterways, prays daily—a dad with a deeper sense of connection, deeper than what’s found at the bottom of a bottle.

Life is now. It’s only this moment. How you choose to live it is up to you. Are you creating beautiful things and being of service, or are you spending the latter part of your life wondering, “What if?” Alcohol removes our ability to think clearly and our ability to truly relate to our natural environment and the people around us.

I choose clarity. I choose connection. I choose to live a life unburdened by the fog of alcohol, and I’m here to encourage anyone who feels that same pull toward a deeper, more meaningful existence. Choose to be fully present. Choose to honor your body, mind, and spirit. The journey is yours, but you don’t have to walk it alone.

Here’s to living a life with purpose, intention, and a clear mind.

God bless you Octavio!