To change a habit can be hard; harder still, noticing a habit that needs to change.

The riffles and rapids of my 20s flowed, thankfully, into calmer water in my 30s. I started writing every evening, about three years ago, no more than two or three sentences to reflect on the day. My journal has one page for each day of the year; each day I add to what I wrote the previous year. Journaling like this—holding up a mirror to today while glancing through a window to the past—is like reminiscing with a dear friend.

My dear friend tells me about places he goes, people he meets, podcasts and books he enjoys, funny things the kids say, and so on. Every now and then he mentions my faithful companion of twenty-five years: alcohol. He reminds me about happy hours and evenings out with friends; he raves about getting better sleep and having more energy during breaks from booze; he laments the mental fog, the exhaustion, and the sluggishness that seem to be the shadow of imbibing alcohol.

He told me this once:

I find my relationship with alcohol to be troubling. There. I said it.

A slightly spicier chip from the bowl, it was a begrudging admission I never imagined I would see in my own handwriting.

Did I have a drinking problem?

Alcohol has certain qualities that make ingesting it problematic for anyone. It’s an addictive carcinogen that gets metabolized into chemicals more toxic to the human body than alcohol itself. I quit using tobacco fifteen years ago—because I didn’t want to be addicted to something that was going to give me cancer. And there I was drinking ethanol on a near-daily basis, leaving notes to myself about how crummy it made me feel. How did I not see this sooner? Putting together the puzzle pieces that my dear friend had scattered, I saw the picture clearly.

My problem wasn’t the drinking (I could take it or leave it…most days).

My problem wasn’t how I felt about the drinking (I mostly enjoyed it…until it wore off).

My problem was how I felt about how I felt about the drinking.

The effects of drinking were no longer appealing, and I still drank. The after-effects of drinking were never appealing, and I still drank. I value energy over lethargy, clarity over confusion, presence over absence—and I still drank. I woke up on quite the slippery slope after dreaming that I was well-poised at the top of the hill, and I saw what a cunning devil alcohol is—no one ever plans on getting addicted to it.

To my dear friend: thank you for your honesty, for painting this picture with brush strokes of my own thoughts and reflections. Your artwork highlighted, like a scorpion under a blacklight, a habit that needed to change.