I never thought a book about booze would lead me to the top of Machu Picchu, but life’s funny like that.

There I was, two o’clock in the morning, clutching “Alcohol Explained” like it was a life raft in a sea of empty bottles. I wasn’t looking for Jesus or a 12-step miracle. I was just tired. Tired of the hangovers, the fuzzy memories, the constant feeling that I was watching my life through a dirty beer glass.

William Porter’s words didn’t sugarcoat it. They were a sledgehammer to my carefully constructed fortress of excuses. Each page peeled back another layer of bullshit I’d been feeding myself. By dawn, I felt naked. Exposed. And weirdly… free.

Quitting was like slowly turning down the volume on a song that had been playing way too loud for way too long. The silence was deafening at first. But then I started hearing things I’d forgotten existed. Birdsong. Actual laughter. The voice in my head that used to whisper “maybe you should slow down” now shouted “holy shit, look at that sunrise!”

With my newfound clarity came an itch. Not for booze, but for… something. So I dug out my dusty passport, a relic from a life I’d put on hold. First stamp? A shaky scrawl from a tiny Caribbean island where the rum flowed like water. But this time, I was drunk on nothing but life.

Suddenly, I was Indiana Jones (without the Nazi-punching). I scaled volcanoes in Indonesia, my legs shaky but my mind crystal clear. I dove with sharks off the coast of South Africa, the adrenaline rush making any bar buzz feel like weak tea. In a Tibetan monastery, I found more peace in five minutes of meditation than in a lifetime of “just one more drink.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. In trying to understand why I drank, I’d discovered a whole world beyond the bottom of a glass. Every stamp in my passport was an up yours to my old life, a trophy of a moment fully lived and remembered.

Don’t get me wrong, sobriety isn’t all sunshine and exotic locales. Some days still suck. But now, instead of drowning those days in whiskey, I book a flight. Because I’ve learned that the best way to escape your problems is to face them head-on, preferably while paragliding over the Swiss Alps.

If you’re thinking the party ends when the drinking stops, remember this: sobriety isn’t about giving up your life. It’s about finally starting to live it.

Right now, I’m in Transylvania! Turns out, vampire hunting is way easier when you’re not nursing a hangover.