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Current Mood: Season 2, Episode 3

Streamed on Instagram Live

The following transcript is excerpted from the video above.

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[39:43]

So I just want to say that Tuesday will mark the second year of my not having a drink. And I say not having a drink because I'm not sure I want to use the word "sobriety." And I think that the language around drinking is very tricky, and people don't like locking themselves into using certain language. So I will say that come Tuesday will have been two years since I had anything to drink. And those two years have been really, really great.

Drinking and not drinking is a very personal thing to each person. It is wired into your particular psychology, in your history. And I can only tell you in the first person who I was, what I did, how it's made my life better. I don't think you have to wait until everything is lost to stop. If you're doing a little bit more than you wanted to, it's always a good decision to do none of it. So I just want to be an example of somebody who said, that's enough. And I don't know that there's enough examples of people saying, "I just had enough."

So if you feel like some people are doing "sober October," well in some ways, you're out. And you might want to think about staying out. Look at it like this: your kidnapper sent you to the store with some money and you're free. You don't have to come back to the house of the kidnapper to bring the loaf of bread and the change. You just keep running. So if you're in "sober October," think about staying out. The next time the ladder appears in front of you to climb out of the hamster wheel of drinking, if you're getting tired of it, take it. I climbed out. I've had a great time. I haven't turned into a bore. I have—two more minutes, it'll be a real bore. But I want to be an example of someone who went, "that's enough!" We're out there. It's easy to do—well for me, it was easy to do. Three to four weeks, you don't feel it anymore. That's what I'm saying. If you're in "sober October" and you're going into week three and you're not itching to do it, maybe stay out!

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