Year of Living Sober is all about having fun.

Forget that little fact that I haven’t had a drink for 244 Days and won’t be having one for another 121, life has been, and will continue to be, cool, crazy and everything else life can be—without me needing to have any alcohol to make it better.

Or worse.

But why would I drink to make life worse? Well, I wouldn’t. Not consciously. But that’s just it, and why I began my YOLS in the first place. I wanted to break a habit which had become unconscious. I was just going through the nightly motions of filling up my glass and filling up my body with booze.

So I stopped. For a year.

And I started a blog about it.

In fact today marks a milestone with this blog. Not only is today my personal two-third-of-a-sober-year mark (Thank you! Thank you!), today is also the 100th post at Year of Living Sober.

100 blog posts about giving up alcohol for a year! And I’m not finished yet.

To celebrate this double milestone I thought it would be fun to use this post to highlight some of the values which have emerged simply by writing about my temporary teetotaller adventure. I didn’t start this YOLS or this blog by sitting down and figuring out what I was trying to achieve, or what I wanted to ‘embody’, but with the passing of time (244 days) a certain feel to this exercise in temporary teetotalism has naturally evolved.

So, following up from a recent post about the Year of Living Sober Mission Statement, I present here for your reading pleasure and mental pontification the Top 6 ‘Year of Living Sober’ Values.

Top 6 ‘Year of Living Sober’ Values

1. Humor.

YOLS offers a humorous angle on teetotalism and, what can be a very serious issue (alcohol addiction).

Frankly, alcohol is a pretty funny subject. Forget drunken calls to ex-girlfriends which have you accidentally proposing to roommates (he was pissed off, I can tell you!)* drinking something called a ‘depressant’ to cheer up is not only ironic and dumb (speaking as a dumb person, BTW) it’s also hilarious.

2. Absolute Honesty.

YOLS offers an honest and frank account of how a former big boozer handles a year off booze.

Not just honesty mind you. ‘Absolute’ honesty. YOLS lets it all hang out with the hope someone, somewhere might be inspired to—if nothing else—maybe feel a little better about their own drinking habits. Plus, by putting myself out there with the blog, I always have a reminder of my goal. Accountability I think they call it.

*N.B. In the spirit of full disclosure I must tell you I never proposed to an ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend in a drunken phone call. He and I only went on a couple of dates and neither of us felt the spark** (**another lie for the sake of a joke).

3. Health.

YOLS offers myself and others encouragement towards making healthy choices.

Maybe the YOLS blog has evolved into a kind of resource for helpful information pertaining to the effects of drinking alcohol? Like how you have a hard time getting hard after hitting it hard.

4. Acceptance.

YOLS offers an alternative to the never-ending debate and politicization around alcohol.

In politic speak, “it is the opinion of this blog that raising the drinking age, heavily taxing alcohol, and other legally enforced control measures of that ilk are not the way to truly liberate people from habits and help them make healthy choices: helpful information presented without religious, political or economical bias is.”

5. Fun.

YOLS offers fun.

Why does a year off booze have to be so serious, hey? It doesn’t. As long as you don’t take yourself too seriously. If I ever have, I’m sorry. I’ll try to walk around with my pants around my ankles more often.

6. Alternatives.

YOLS offers an alternative to the ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ alcohol attitude.

Some people would have you believe if you have one glass of wine for the ‘wrong’ reason, eg. to help you relax on a first date, then you are an ALCOHOLIC. Others define alcoholism as someone who has black-outs and can’t remember major events in their life because they are drunk from dawn to dusk. Personally, I think I’m somewhere in between.

Before I began this YOLS I thought maybe there was another type of person who wasn’t an alcoholic but did sometimes rely on alcohol. Doing YOLS I have come to know there are many people who see themselves more like I see myself—as what might be described as a dipsomaniac; a dipsomaniac being someone who really loves a drink sometimes but doesn’t need it all the time.

YOLS values an alternative to all or nothing.

Above all though the goal of my YOLS and this YOLS blog is summed up in the motto of Year of Living Sober: ‘When a year off is on’. I couldn’t put it any simpler than that. The time had come for a break; I took it.

Maybe one day you will too. Or not. We can be friends either way.

My name is Ben and I’m a dipsomaniac.

Today is Day 244 of my Year of Living Sober.

Little Booze Joke

A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “Do you have any helicopter flavoured potato chips?” The bartender shakes his head and says, “No, we only have plane.”

Over the last 244 days have you enjoyed any particular YOLS ‘angle’ more than another? Or is this your first visit to Year of Living Sober? Love to get your comment.