sobriety, sleep and settling into a new reality

letters from the now #2

hello friends,

coming at you today from Barcelona, on a romantic holiday, with some work sessions sprinkled in.

In my last post I wrote about identity, great work and practice, and I published it on Jan 5. The week after I created a voiceover for that post, that was Jan 11. The voiceover is found on Substack but also doubles into Spotify and other podcast platforms, and I think that’s cool. That can be heard here.

And now, let me give you a little update on some practices I’ve been following this year, so far, and also on Great Work. : )

barcelona is pretty

---

an experiment in sobriety

Last year my young dionysian brother Lukas, who is slowly growing up, suggested on the phone that “next year something’s gotta change”, and he suggested “100 days of no alcohol” as the year begins. I was impressed and proud. I finished my beer and my cigarette and said “I’m in” and also raised the stakes to 111 days for kicks.

I was raised on addiction and drugs being BAD and that there is NO REASON to smoke for instance, because it’s EXPENSIVE and it KILLS YOU and it doesn’t even LOOK COOL (lies) and it STINKS and it’s just BÄH.

The cleanest porches have the most bodies buried below.

To be fair, my family is pretty damn clean when it comes to conventional drugs. So let me say this again in a more nuanced way:

In a house of purity and abstinence, the common sin finds no hold, so it’s the more sophisticated ones make themselves at home.

Alcohol and cigarettes are an everyman’s drug. You shun those, what’s the next thing you can abuse? Sugar? Carbs? I say for sure. Is avoidance a drug? How about repressing anger? Cancer comes from the darndest places. Smoking is just the most obvious one.

I used to pride myself in being a non-addict despite having an addictive personality. Sure, I was never abstinent. I had my first beer at 15 at a dance ball, which I dutifully told my mother about, who had the worst possible reaction to it. I had my first cigarette at 18, despite being so well raised and informed. I smoked my first joint at 20, in 2012, and joyfully partook henceforth.

But whenever I noticed any substance playing an excessive role in my life, I took a break as soon as I could. I never wanted to be a drinker, a stoner, a smoker. I was almost a bit obsessive with it. Until 2022.

In 2022 lived with Lukas. He taught me how to relax about all this shit. I think he had much less puritanical influences poured into him, because he didn’t grow up with our grandparents as much.

It’s not for me to tell his story exactly, but I remember he started smoking dope, and when he was out of product, he would try to collect the scrapes and dusts to roll a spliff that was basically just a co[n/m]ical cigarette. One day in 2020 I gave him some shit for that and then told him, “bro, if you want to smoke, smoke, but please be honest with yourself”. I think that day he became a smoker.

When he started living with me in 2022, he was already a smoker, and I wasn’t used to having such a steady habit close to me, that’s why it disgusted and scared me a bit. But he stood by himself, which was impressive, so I got used to it and accepted it. One day I said, “hm, I kinda wanna smoke a cigarette … but I shouldn’t”. He said, “bro, if you want to smoke, smoke. be honest with yourself”. I didn’t become a smoker that day, but the smokers in my inner world were released from the dungeon, became reinstated as citizens, and started coexisting with the non-smokers. I went to the balcony and had a very enjoyable cigarette.

I helped my brother grow up when we lived together. He was a kid when he moved in with me, and he left as a young man. In return, he helped me relax. He helped me take some sticks out of my ass. In return I shoved a few up his, hehe. Some sort of dionysian / apollonian mish mash happened. This was good for both of us.

Since that time, for the first time in my life, I didn’t try to control my intake of anything. Alcohol, cannabis, sugar, tobacco, coffee, video games, porn, short form video slop, bread. All the good bad stuff I like.

Of course I continued observing myself, but I had to learn not to judge. To observe myself passively, but not to comment, even internally. To look upon myself gently and amusedly, as upon a kid, wondering “when ‘he’ would have enough of it”.

That was a good time, and it healed a lot in me. In turn, I tried to pass on some of my judgmental and critical thinking on to Lukas, who I think needed it more than me at the time. Imagine my pride when, now two years later, he came around with the idea to be (alcoholically) sober, and for 100 days no less!

---

in practice

On this day, Sunday, 19 Jan 2025, I’ve been sober for almost 20 out of 111 days. It’s easy to me. Lukas had a cheat day yesterday for his birthday party, and I’ll have a cheat day today for a date with Julia, so we can indulge in the wines and vermouths Barcelona has to offer.

Here are some reports from the ground as this practice develops:

In parallel with my sobriety experiment I’ve instantiated a bed time rule, that I never before had in my life. I’ve been yearning for the creative hours of the morning, and in turn a more conservative bed time. I did some calculations (Adlerian psychologist Claude was a great help and conversation partner for this) and figured out the following:

• I should be in bed at 9:30pm

• and off to sleep at 10:30pm

• which then gives me 9 hours of sleep

• for a wake up time at 7:30am

• which allows me to be at my desk for work at 9am

That unlocks the morning AND gives me a full sleep (I’m realizing I need 9-10 hours, rather than 7-8).

i made a wish

Sleep is greatly affected by drugs and alcohol, and their absence sobriety. The lack of sedation makes for an interesting mix. Technically sleep should be of better quality. I haven’t really seen that yet, partly because falling asleep is a bit harder. I noticed that I my means of sedation are now: 1) a good day’s work, 2) a physical workout, 3) reading before bed.

I’m also trying to adjust a circadian rhythm that tends to default towards 1-3am bedtime, rather than 9-11pm. That’s a macro adjustment to a four hour difference. Not easy. Not even sure yet if it’s sustainably possible.

These habits and effects seem to have very little to do with alcohol consumption. But I think the biggest factor is that not drinking makes it way less likely that I divert from these habits. I think with an evening of drinking, good habits for the evening and the morning are pretty much out the window.

As I work with this I’m brought back to what I liked very much about working with my own habits, addictions and behaviors: Getting my discipline on has crazy knock on effects. In turn, letting myself slack also does. Some are positive, some are negative, on both sides, but to have the discipline route available is amazing, as the last years have been very slacky.

Around discipline and slack, alcohol seems to be a focal point.

The current discipline stack:

• no alcohol

• bedtime & reading

• creative mornings

• exhaustion through work and workouts

• workouts require good meal prep and scheduling and profit from not drinking

• scheduled days are more productive

This stack enables so many things I’ve been yearning for! Creative morning hours, more reading time, sports. The disadvantage is that slacking is very good for me every once a while, because it promotes non-coercion. I’m not sure if that’s true though, so I want to figure now how good discipline can be for me, and really taste its benefits. Especially now that I don’t feel like I have to coerce myself into discipline very much.

As a contrast, here is the slack stack around alcohol:

• alcohol is available, so 3-4 times a week I’ll have 1-3 glasses, 1 of those times to a more excessive degree

• bedtime comes later, reading is less interesting, more likely to hang out on screens

• morning hours needed to sleep

• alcohol provides exhaustion / sedation, but also sometimes activation — unreliable

• alcohol counteracts workouts and skews caloric intake via its own calories and increasing appetite

• alcohol can break the schedule

What I’m trying to get at, is that a good habit invites so many other good habits into its house. At the same time, a bad habit uninvites good habits. That’s why this time of discipline feels incredibly freeing to me. There are no should-s here. I’m so excited for another day without alcohol! I’m pumped to go to bed and read! I’m sure these times will change, and I don’t want to jinx myself, but I’m really feeling something here that I’ve been building towards in the recent years. I also feel a necessity, realizing the good habits that I want to partake in, realizing how much time they take, and how drinking and other unintentional activity will take that time away, and I won’t get done in a week what I want.

Let’s see how this experiment progresses! Tonight I’m gonna have a drink :D

---

a note on (great) work

Since my last post, I’ve applied to a bunch of jobs, partly with a pretty transparent narrative on what kind of work I consider Great and how I would love to do that. I have some pretty good leads, my standards are pleasantly adjusting to what I can realistically expect as I return to the working world.

What’s VERY interesting to me is that with the premise of applying to jobs, I’m doing the thing that I somehow never really managed to do when I was considering myself a freelancer: I’m very liberally contacting people. It’s easy for me to be like, hey I’m looking to do some Great Work, would you like to talk some time?

My next two weeks are pleasantly sprinkled with calls with people who I’ve been meaning to catch up with, but I felt like I was lacking the right pretext. “Calling and catching up with people” is, as far as I can tell, THE core gameplay loop behind which great productivity and wealth lies for me, and I’ve been waiting for it to unlock for a while now.

i just gotta call some people

I’m excited about the next two weeks, which I will spend with friends in the south of Spain, while upholding my commitments to my self and my work. I hope by the time I’m back in Germany in early February, my work situation looks a bit more clearly defined, and I can start into spring with good habits and a solid working arrangement.

And of course, to continue writing and publishing, so that this creative garden may coexist with the field on which I shall toil : )

As a reminder, here are my declarations for the current season:

I hereby declare that I will publish a written or recorded piece every week. By Sunday, before the new week begins, something shall be released.

I also declare that during the working hours of the weekdays, I will focus on contacting people and companies about the Great Work I want to do, until I have sufficiently engaging work.

2025 shall be the a year of Love, of Great Work, and of focused practice.

---

Thank you very much for reading and catch you soon!

Follow this publication on Spotify to get the audio narrations of these posts.

Much love and many blessings

S