Hey, this is Patrick Coffin with something a little offbeat and a little personal.

In the early part of November 2019, I decided to do something that I've been thinking about for a couple of years and

honestly I never really imagined that I would do.

And that is I quit drinking.

The idea first entered my mind to cut out all alcohol started about two years ago.

When my wife and I did this diet called the Whole30 diet based on a book called it starts with food.

If you want to find out more, you can click the link below.

One of the criteria for the whole 30

was no booze for 30 days, not a drop. Now in the past I'd given up drinking for

Lent with a whiskey or maybe some red wine on Sunday because you know I'm not a Southern Baptist

and I prided myself I'm not really craving it through the week during Lent.

But looking at 30 straight days of zero booze that was a different deal for someone who really enjoyed the

taste and the feeling of a nice buzz. It seemed to make me feel more creative.

In fact, for the first time in my life, halfway through the Whole 30, I felt a bit buzzed just from the feeling of having

fasted from booze and crap sugar and bloating carbohydrates as well.

Now I like the feeling of drinking. Now a still small voice after two weeks of

none of it just kind of whispered how would you like to feel this for the rest of

your life. But the diet ended and I did feel good and I did lose weight but I

didn't stop drinking and then a few months later I was at a party and I heard

about this Caledian guy. I didn't know his name. And he was a Christian and he gave up drinking as a reparation for sinners to draw people back to Christ in the church.

That kind of made an impression on me.

I'd heard about people like venerable Matt Talbot, who was an Irish drunk who got sober and became a saint basically before AA,

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