The Dispatch
No XLVIII · Habits · 8 min
The first 90 days without alcohol
It was a Tuesday in February, about ten past nine, and I was standing in the kitchen with a glass of soda water that was supposed to be a beer. The fridge hummed.
No XLVII · HABITS
Why quitting drinking is different after 40
I stopped drinking at twenty-six for about six months and remember the experience as a kind of mild novelty. I stopped drinking at forty-three and a fortnight of body work happened that I was not prepared for.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLVI · HABITS
The 3am test, day 3 without alcohol
It was three eleven a.m. when I woke on day three, and the bedroom ceiling had the particular grain you only see at that hour, when your eyes have been open in the dark long enough to start finding patterns.
28 Apr 2026 · 6 min
No XLV · HABITS
Alcohol and anxiety, the loop
I sat in a café on Glebe Point Road in the late autumn, watching a man at the next table order a flat white with hands that were almost steady. I knew what he was doing because I had been him.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLIV · HABITS
Moderation vs abstinence
I had a conversation in a pub car park in Newtown about three years ago with a friend who had decided he was going to "moderate". Two drinks on Friday. Two on Saturday. Nothing in the week.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XLIII · HABITS
Weed, the functional user question
It was a Wednesday in November, half past nine, and I was on the back step with a mug of tea and a bloke I have known since school.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLII · HABITS
The first month without weed, honestly
It was a Sunday in March, just past eight in the evening, and I was lying on the couch with my eyes open at the ceiling, irritable in a way I had not been since my early twenties. The TV was on. I was not watching it.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XLI · HABITS
Weed and sleep architecture
It was a Tuesday in May, somewhere past eleven, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed with a half-smoked cone in my hand thinking about the conversation I had at the doctor that morning. She had asked me how I slept.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XL · HABITS
Porn, the 90-day audit
It was a Thursday night in July, somewhere just after ten, and I was sitting in my office with the door closed running through a spreadsheet I had built two months earlier. Three columns. Date, duration, mood after.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXXIX · HABITS
Porn and the dopamine recalibration
It was a Saturday morning in September, just after seven, and I was sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee and a stack of journal papers I had printed off the night before. My partner was still asleep.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXXVIII · HABITS
Relapse without the shame spiral
It was a Friday in August, just past ten at night, and I was standing in the kitchen with a glass of red in my hand and the bottle open on the bench. Sixty-two days clean.
28 Apr 2026 · 6 min
No XXXVII · HABITS
The tools that actually work for quitting
It was a Tuesday afternoon, October, and I was sitting in my car in a Coles car park scrolling through the App Store with the engine off. I had just driven past the bottle shop a second time, come back, sat down.
28 Apr 2026 · 8 min
No XXXVI · HABITS
The trigger map
It was a Sunday morning in May, a clear sky, a kitchen table in front of me, and a sheet of butcher's paper with a black pen on it. The kettle was on. The kids were at their mother's.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXV · HABITS
Alcohol and the witching hour, after the kids
It was a Wednesday in November, just past eight in the evening, and I had finished reading the bedtime story and closed the door on the kids' room and walked down the hallway and gone straight to the kitchen and opened...
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXIV · HABITS
The AA question as a non-religious man
It was a Tuesday in February, half past six in the evening, and I was sitting in my car in the car park of a Uniting Church in Hawthorn, twenty minutes early, with the heater on and a cup of takeaway coffee going cold...
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXIII · HABITS
Weed and motivation decline
I noticed it on a Tuesday in March. There was a list on the fridge: fix the back gate, ring the dentist, draft the school form, lodge the BAS. I had read that list every morning for eleven days. None of it had moved.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXII · HABITS
The friend-group question when you quit
The pub was a Wednesday institution. I had been going for nine years. Same booth, same four blokes, same first round before the second one had finished.
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXXI · HABITS
The sponsor vs therapist difference
I rang my sponsor at 11:40pm on a Sunday. He picked up on the third ring. I was in the car park of a bottle shop I had not bought anything from yet, and he talked me through the next twenty minutes the way you talk a friend through a dodgy...
28 Apr 2026 · 7 min
No XXX · HABITS
The 90-day after photo
I took the photo on the morning of day one. Bathroom mirror, no shirt, neutral face, the same light I shave in. I hated it. The eyes were soft and a bit yellow. The cheeks were puffy in a way I had been pretending was just my face now.
28 Apr 2026 · 6 min
No XXIX · HABITS
The 2am relapse script
The first time I needed it, I was sitting on the kitchen floor at 2:14am with the freezer open. I cannot tell you exactly why I had opened the freezer.
28 Apr 2026 · 6 min