Where Have All the Good Times Gone?

There are only two things that an alcoholic doesn't like: change and the way things are. I'm afraid that if I try something new that it will end up being a disaster. Tried and true, that's my motto. I would get drunk, get into fights, end up in jail or sleeping on the floor or wandering around, trying to find my car, my wallet, my shirt, etc. etc. but still have the gall the next morning to scoff at your suggestion that I experiment with some new behavior. I would peer into the mirror to inspect the strange cuts on my face or wonder at the origin of the new stains and tears in my clothes thinking: " That's crazy talk. It might not work out well. It might end up worse."

I have always been proud of the fact that I'm regular in my exercise habits. OK, maybe a little compulsive in my exercise habits. OK, maybe I'm not a little anything. I exercise compulsively. As I've gotten older I find that I can't do some of the things that I used to do. My knees hurt when I run and my back hurts when I bike. I still do these things, of course, because maybe, just maybe, today the same action that has produced the same result again and again will be different.

I decided to take up swimming despite the fact that I hate water and don't know how to swim and look like a prehistoric stork of some kind in a bathing suit. It's good exercise and it's easy on the joints. Obviously I had to take swimming lessons or risk drowning in four feet of chlorine. The young woman who is the swimming instructor managed to fit me in between a four year old in a Donald Duck swimming suit and her "Gentle Splash" class, where dowagers sashay around in the water for 20 minutes, ridiculously upbeat hip-hop echoing around the pool.

I didn't want to do this. I was afraid to try and afraid that I might fail. I don't like girls calling me "Mr. Horseface." I wanted to keep doing what I have always done. I don't want to change.

I now swallow only about a liter of pool water per lap.