Sacrificing tomorrow's happiness for today is how I felt yesterday and unfortunately still feel today. I had a great Sunday afternoon with some friends; however, I missed updating my blog and suffered the consequences of being hungover for a couple of days. It's undoubtedly an awful feeling, especially considering the amount of alcohol I consumed throughout the afternoon and evening.

I’ve thought a lot about alcohol and drugs throughout my search for happiness, as well as throughout various stakes of my life. I’ve spoken about it several times throughout this blog, and tried to justify both sides of the fence in terms of sacrificing our body, and mind, in the short term, to enter a somewhat delusional state, sacrifice our future happiness for the present moment, through poisoning our body, to enter a state of euphoria through intoxication. It’s a strange concept, especially when writing it out like that, it’s strange, it’s obscure, it’s unreasonably justified to an extent, however, within those moments, some deep and meaningful connections, joy, and happiness can be found. Simply writing the process on paper and trying to explain it to someone who was not familiar to it, would sound like a silly idea, and one fraught with danger.

To be honest, I've thought long and hard about how alcohol contributes to my life, both in a negative and positive way. Although I lean more towards the negative side these days, I still can't completely exclude it from my life. "Exclude" seems to frame it as an addiction, but I feel like it does have positive aspects in various situations throughout my life. Society has widely accepted alcohol, and despite its potential disastrous effects, it still remains deeply ingrained in modern society. While there has been a recent movement towards alcohol-free or reduced consumption, it still plays a significant role and contributes to entertainment in our lives, especially in Western culture.

Happiness is a collection of a vast array of feelings, experiences, understanding, and emotion. Throughout they wide array of facets, sometimes there are external influence that can contribute to our search for happiness, and to an extent I believe alcohol had the potential to do that. Obviously this choice is subjective and depending of your objectives, understanding of oneself and various life choices, this contributes significantly. However, a beautiful red, a margarita watching the sunset, a cold pint with the boys, there are moment that have been contracted within our lives that have the potential to somewhat contribute to our experiences, our connections, and our subsequent happiness. I’m not promoting alcohol per say, but I do think there is something within alcohol and it’s controlled use that can contribute strongly in our search for happiness, and create something that we may never have found before.

Thanks,

Dean