True Perspective and a Phony Negroni—Reflections on luck.
Newsletter | March 2025
It’s the day after St Patrick’s Day and I’m taking a moment to reflect on life and “luck.”
St Patty’s is notoriously a big drinking holiday [I’m sure I don’t need to mention] and celebrating looks quite different for me than it used to.
Last night, I had a deliciously mellow dinner with friends—they had cocktails while I sipped a Phony Negroni. [More on this later] 🍹
After a lovely meal, I was in bed early, slept soundly, and woke up feeling rested, clear-headed, and energized for the day ahead.
🌟 No achy hangover to make me feel sluggish.
🌟 No simmering anxiety or worried thoughts of regret.*
*I think I’m funny, in general, but after a few drinks I’m obviously hilarious. 😬
In the past, after a night out drinking, my fuzzy memories and foggy mind would start spinning the next morning with thoughts like:
🌩️“Did I say something weird?”
🌩️“Did I embarrass myself?”
🌩️“Was I really being “funny” or did I put my foot in my mouth?”
It’s a lovely feeling to wake up holding all of my memories, both for the sake of savoring a beautiful evening and also for the lack of anxiety and self-doubt.
Anyhoo,
Back to luck.
😅
I used to walk through life as a cynic. (...though I would have called myself a “realist” back then.)
That humor I mentioned earlier had a sharp, sarcastic edge, and my unofficial tagline was:
“Well, that’s just my luck.”
- A bus running late.
- The store that closed 5 minutes ago.
- My connecting flight delayed.
- An important text never received…
👉 “Just my luck.”
I would say it out of frustration, yes, but often with a wry smile like… Heh. This silly life...
"Why would anything be easy?" 👉 [my 2nd unofficial tagline]
Please don’t misunderstand—I still love a good, wry sense of humor. I love everything from wit and wile to a knee-slapping pun. 🤹
But in hindsight, I can see so clearly how my sharp filter on life was simply reinforcing itself... like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was just waiting for the annoying, irritating, inconvenient stuff to happen—and when it did, I had my handy taglines at the ready.
🙄 Plus an eyeroll and an exasperated sigh.
Here’s where perspective comes in.
Something I’ve come to understand quite clearly—and probably would've rolled my eyes at in the past—is that everything in life is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The work of unhooking from alcohol is not an isolated activity. It’s connected to every aspect of your life, your outlook, your mind.
For me, it’s required a huge dose of curiosity—investigating and evaluating deeply held beliefs about my life and my SELF—and updating some pretty outdated scripts.
It’s required learning new information to gain a better understanding of my own mind—understanding that we all have a “negativity bias” built-in from evolutionary survival. 🧠 Our human brains are expert problem-finders, safety-seekers, scanning for danger around every bend.
⚗️ We've also got a default setting for "confirmation bias"—an element of our mind that's always trying to compare and predict—trying to prove ourselves right.
It’s natural [and often helpful] to see the negative… but it's equally important to remember to look for the good.
With a clear mind, free from the chaos that alcohol creates—you can train your mind to look for the good.
The beauty, the awe.
🌿 The little buds on the trees.
🌷 That purple flower growing up through the sidewalk.
💫 Everything in a day that’s going right.
☺️ A kind smile from a neighbor.
🥘 A delicious dinner with friends…
Like a wide-angle lens, the truth of everything comes into view.
And yeah, sometimes the bus is still late. And sometimes a flight gets canceled.
But, instead of focusing the spotlight of your mind on everything going wrong and using it as PROOF! "See!? Life is hard!"
All that "proof" can be balanced with a boatload of evidence pointing in the other direction...
And this perspective, my friend, is priceless.
Looking for the good, you see more good. And, all of a sudden, it's as if more good stuff appears. 💫
CONSIDER THIS 💁♀️
I used to drink "at" the bad stuff in my life.
"At" a hard day.
"At" the news...
And that, too, was a perpetuating cycle.
Alcohol just further clouded my perspective, depressed my mind, and dragged me down.
The news these days is full of awful things... believe me, I see the awful... but I still see the good.
I'm holding onto my perspective and that keeps me in action, motivated to make things better...
I'm holding onto hope.
💕✨
So, let me ask you:
Is luck something that happens to us in life?
Or maybe, is luck actually a quality of life we can choose?
IN SHORT? If you're feeling stuck in your life, or stuck in your drinking... you can change things for the better.
Our thoughts create our emotions, and our emotions drive our behavior. You can learn to drink less naturally by shifting your mindset, and you can get started today:
