i used to mix it up between tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, junk food and video games.

i tapered off drinking by like 80% when i moved into the middle of nowhere, alone. i didn't expect to do slow my drinking so drastically, but something about drinking alone, literally miles away from others, felt less glamorous and sophisticated than it did when i used to do it on my front porch and shoot the shit with neighbors. now that i'm back in The City, it's never really come back. in 2021, decades of shitty eating combined with high anxiety culminated in health markers where my primary care physician was like, "hey, if you can stop drinking completely, you should." so i did, generally. i had like 3 drinks in 2022. i have had 1 very small drink so far in 2023. some fruity little sour 3% beer i sipped over an hour to be social. my numbers are a lot better now across the board, with only a few being outside of optimal. and i lost 5 lbs since october, which my GP described as "very cool."

i quit tobacco when covid happened. it was very tough until it wasn't. i definitely ate more and terribly for a while.

i still do cannabis, but i used to be a Smoke Weed Er'reday guy and now it's more like, once a week-ish, if i remember to, and just a little bit. usually while i'm cleaning the house.

i still do junk food sometimes, but i don't keep snackies around the house and have been trying to be more intentional / less compulsive when i eat. like i try to taste the food and enjoy it, instead of cramming it into my animal shaped mouth machine. if i have an upsetting day though, you can almost guarantee i'm getting some easy, trashy takeaway for one of my meals.

i still do some gaming, but usually only for a few hours a few days a week, and generally as a social thing with long distance friends. very casual compared to what i was. i still do like to mix video games with cannabis.

i bite the shit out of my nails though, when anxious. i try to never do it in front of others and sometimes try to keep floss around in places so i could maybe replace the urge with something also grooming oriented that would be a "positive" habit. i used to have those little cheap emery boards around too, so i could file down any hangers, but i used 'em up and should get more.

i'm also on beta blockers for BP and i think it's taken the edge off of things enough to give me some perspective/awareness of my anxiety, instead of just being in it, white knuckling my way through life. i definitely have become aware in the last years of how much i clench my jaw while just casually existing in what i would otherwise consider a relaxed state.