Nowadays, I think about drinking often. Which is to say, I think often about drinking less. And I find that the thinking, oddly enough, has had a slow but significant impact on the drinking. Which is to say, I drink less now than I used to.

That is a very big deal to me. Because though I've always enjoyed drinking — quite regularly but not uncontrollably — in the past few years I had begun to drink more than I had in the past, at a time in my life when most of my friends were not drinking more. Many were actually drinking noticeably less than they used to, even as the percentage of Americans 55 and older who drink has increased over the past two decades — by nearly 20%.

The increase in frequency and amount of my own drinking concerned me, because it was clearly not a hallmark of aging with strength and, in fact, seemed to fly directly in the face of my important personal goal of steadily building longevity. Though it wasn't a compulsion or addiction, drinking was one helluva comfortable evening habit: around 9 p.m. every night, after my daughter was asleep, or on nights when she was with her mother instead of with me, I'd pour a healthy four ounces of Irish whiskey over a giant square ice cube, slow enough to make the cube crack. That crack was the signal to raise the bottle.

I never used to do this. In fact, throughout my 30s and 40s, as a single guy living in New York City, I would never — ever — drink alone at home. But here I was, in my middle 50s, indulging in this relatively new and rather cozy little ritual almost every evening.

A cozy little ritual with a dark fringe: Along with the pour often arose a thought: Why? Where does this need come from? I never used to have it, or indulge it, alone, at night, two hours or three before bed. So, why, then, when left to my own devices, am I nowadays so often caving in to it?

The answer was not a mystery.

I separated from my spouse in 2021, after 10 years of marriage. I hadn't anticipated how much pain there was to dampen, mitigate, avoid — pick your verb. A whiskey with ice was an obvious, if not ridiculously obvious, form of self-medicating. I spoke about it regularly with my therapist, who made a point of asking me, every four or so sessions, "So, how's the drinking?"

My need to self-medicate had morphed into an entrenched habit.

He and I both knew I didn't have a "drinking problem," but rather a problem that made me choose to drink as a means of distraction. I was getting tired of having that problem. The habit was too strong for my comfort, and its consistency bothered me because it was almost certainly shaving time off my health span. How much time is a mystery. But needless to say, I was acting against my own interests.

The most important of which is my daughter.

As an older dad, I want to be alive and well — as in physically and cognitively strong — for her, and because of her, for as long as possible. Drinking (alone) every night doesn't have any rightful place in that plan. Neither does leaving even a couple months of life on the table, due to even moderate but daily drinking.

So, after more than two years of thinking about drinking less, I actually started to drink less. Not by talking about drinking less with my therapist but, rather, by talking about drinking less with other habitual 50-something drinkers, many of whom also wanted to drink less and less often.

Notice I didn't write "all of whom wanted to drink less." Some fellow drinkers were perfectly happy continuing their nightly ritual — a martini, a gin and tonic, a glass of wine. So it wasn't being in conversation only with alcohol abstainers and reducers that helped me break out of my drinking habit. It was simply communing with like-minded people, and hearing their tactical advice on starting to drink less, that made the difference.

One friend said she'd place her running shoes by the front door every evening, to remind herself of her goals, and started stocking her refrigerator with seltzer water. Another friend said he reduced his nightly drinking by simply going to bed earlier.

Genius!

Tactical advice is helpful. But the funny thing about talking more about drinking less, particularly with fellow drinkers, is that it seemed to create a new self-expectation: though I still drink a few times a week, the time had come for me to move away from the daily 9 p.m. whiskey habit.

It worked. After four years, I'm no longer waiting for the ice to crack.

To find out more about Paul Von Zielbauer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Wil Stewart at Unsplash