Pushkin.

This is an I-Heart podcast.

About a year ago, heavyweight was canceled, and for the first time in my adult life, I was without a job.

Luckily, I had a plan B.

Drinking.

Drinking has always been my safety net.

It makes me feel bulletproof, in a state of grace.

Who needs a job when you're in a state of grace?

So job or no job, health insurance or no,

at the end of the day, there was still booze,

just like there'd always been,

which is to say that every night, for 25 years,

I have drank.

But after getting laid off, something shifted.

Along with losing my job, I lost my sense of identity, and booze only amplified the feeling.

After a night of drinking, I'd wake up at 3 a.m. in a panic, not knowing who or what or why I was. I'd always turned to alcohol for solace,

but now I found myself too scared to drink. Over the course of heavyweights eight seasons,

I've acted as an interlocutor between friends,

family, and strangers. Now, I needed to interlocute between me and me, the me that wanted to keep

drinking, and the me that didn't. So I started a journal to reflect on my relationship to drinking,

how it all began, how much I have loved it, and whether it was time to stop.

These are excerpts.

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