How to Celebrate Without Alcohol
Pursuing more than a champagne bottle 🍾
A MESSAGE FROM LE BOYALE
HOW TO CELEBRATE WITHOUT ALCOHOL
ON QUITTING ALCOHOL
We have a celebratory practice called “a shoey” down here in Australia. This process involves taking off your own—or someone else’s—shoe, filling it with beer or any other alcoholic beverage, and then pouring the shoe beverage directly down your throat.
The shoey says a lot about our national character and the way we celebrate. It’s usually done to celebrate an achievement, but more often than not that achievement is that you haven’t passed out yet.
It was about six months into my sobriety that I realized I’d need to find new ways to celebrate without booze. My podcast was doing well and it was the first taste of success I’d ever really had in almost a decade of comedy. Obviously my natural instinct was to celebrate with a shoey. I wanted to do 50 fucking shoeys. Your shoes, my shoes, some cunt’s gumboots. Just get me a fucking shoe with gin in it.
The only way I wanted to celebrate was the only way I knew how to celebrate. I wanted to get fucked up. But that was not an option anymore.
I remember sitting at home, alone, wondering what the fuck I was going to do when I hit all my goals. I imagined all my comedy dreams becoming realities. The dreams I’d been single-mindedly pursuing for so long; recording a special, selling out theaters, traveling the world, cunts chanting BOYLE.
I thought about how I would celebrate these milestones. And I kept going blank. The best I could come up with was to get a nice hotel, jerk off and order pizza. But that seemed less a reward than a punishment.
I had this hollow feeling. I asked myself, if you can’t celebrate the way you want to, what’s the fucking point? Which raised the bigger question: what am I really pursuing? Is it the comedy or the celebration?
If I was being honest with myself at the time, I think I would have realized I was more pursuing the celebration than the work. I wanted to be on the podium with the champagne bottle more than I wanted to be in the car actually racing. But that was no longer an option. The champagne bottle had been taken away from me, so I guess it was time to strap into the car seat.
I decided that if I couldn’t celebrate the way I wanted to, then the work has to be the celebration in and of itself. The work is the reward. Focus on the journey, not the destination, and all that horseshit.
So that’s how I approach my work now. I treat it as my reward, which is very fucking difficult in practice. Because you know, sometimes ya just feel like boiling up a green tea, pouring it into ya gym shoe and just fucking slamming it.
NEW ON THE PATREON
Boyle heroically battles through illness to get ya this week’s Ask Me Anything. This week’s question was sent in by Mark Bayley, here it is:
"When making life changing decisions (such as new job, house etc), how does one know if it's the right thing to do?"
If you have a question or topic you would like discussed, then leave it in the comments section and Le Boyale will get to it.
Enjoy.
CHECK OUT HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE POD
Boyle rants about Sam Harris’s extortionate meditation app. That’s all he can think about when meditating… the price.
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I just smoke a nice cigar.