project detox

I quit drinking 2.5 years ago now, if my mind is serving me right.

I had slowly started drinking more and more as COVID went on, going from an occasional whiskey drinker to a multi-glass-per-night drinker. By many standards, I was an alcoholic, but I didn't see myself as one at the time. Regardless of the veracity of that label, the poison was doing what poisons do to your body and mind. I was groggy, bloated, not able to gain or retain muscle mass. I was a good dad, but I could be great. I was a good husband, but I could be great.

I wasn't mean or abusive or anything, honestly I got sappy as I drank more. I was grumpy in the mornings after, though that was usually remedied by a couple stout coffees. Using one drug to treat the negative effects of the other.

My wife and I decided to quit together on New Years Eve. We haven't had a sip since. For a while afterwards, there wasn't much of a change. It was really only noticeable in that we didn't feel the shitty hungover feelings we had unknowingly gotten used to.

Then things started becoming more clear. We realized our memory was better. Our mood vastly improved. We both got into the best shape of our lives. We spent more quality time with the kids and each other. Our finances improved, largely because we weren't buying multiple bottles of whiskey and wine every week.

It took a while for the best effects to show themselves.

I think it's time to detox again. This time, digitally.

I have grown up watching YouTube as my primary form of video media. I got my first social media account in my young teens, MySpace and then soon after Facebook. I've been on X, formerly Twitter, for years. I've been able to watch them grow, change, morph, and I've watched myself change and morph along with them.

Looking at myself now with respect to my relationships with digital platforms is very similar to looking at myself when I used to drink. There's the usual initial acknowledgement: whiskey is delicious, it's just to unwind, I only use YouTube for entertainment and I try not to scroll, X can be a great place to get educational material.

It's cope, right? If you really dig into it, it's cope.

My cope of choice is "I'm on X and YouTube for marketing my startups. I'm building distribution!"

I've been doing that for two to three years now. Except, I have no startup. Thousands of followers, almost none of them are willing to buy anything I've built. This is in part because I haven't built a lot of stuff worth buying, but it's also because I spend a lot of valuable time shitposting and scrolling instead of building.

It's silly to pretend I'm marketing when I am not building anything to market. Not just silly, it's cope. It's a lie to myself.

Project Detox

Project Detox is a final acknowledgement that I don't have a healthy relationship with social media, in the same way I didn't have a healthy relationship with alcohol. It's not serving me in any meaningfully positive way. It's a huge net negative.

I've tried a lot of different tactics. I've got a browser extension that blocks X and YouTube... but it has an on/off switch. I just turn it off with some cope justification that "I'll just do it for a sec to watch one video on this totally important subject" or "I just need to make this one post and then I'll get off." I've tried "write-only social media" where all I can do is post, not read/consume, but I always end up getting on to see how a post does, and then I'm right back in the trap.

This is roughly akin to "I'll just have a sip of beer" or "I'll only drink on the weekends." For some people that's totally doable. For people with a problem (me) it's not.

So for the next 6 months, until January 15, I'll be off all socials except for this site and my blogs. This site is fine, to me, because it's so far from actual social media that it doesn't have the same effects as YouTube/X do. My blogs are fine because there's nothing to scroll there except my own writing.

The Goals

The goal is not to just not be on these sites. It's to replace them with better things. I need to actually work on my businesses, establish some amount of revenue, learn more, write more, release more.

The goal is to whole-ass the stuff I've been half-assing all year.

Project Detox is just getting myself out of my own way to do it.