Recently, I watched a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead where a guy named Joe Cross realizing that his health is deteriorating goes on a juice fast to “reboot” his system and regain control of his health. He does it for 60 days and the results are pretty awesome. He loses a lot of weight, comes off of his meds and just generally has a new outlook on life.

I am by no means morbidly obese or in any danger of dying. I am however on a slippery slope that can snowball into an avalanche of bad situations. Diabetes runs high in my family. So keeping my weight in check and my alcohol intake in moderation is something I have to really address.

Admittedly, it wasn’t so much the weight loss I was after, or the added health benefits – don’t get me wrong, those things are important and part of the package – but what I really wanted was the way he looked, the guy was glowing. Yeah he looked good because he lost weight, but his skin was glowing, he looked refreshed, he looked like a new man with a new lease on life. There was fire in his eyes, a spark in his life.

I want that.

So yesterday was day one of my juice fast. I was a little worried because, a juice fast isn’t the cheapest thing to do. I was hearing everything from $14 to $8 a day. I can barely pay rent and have enough for a beer, so that was going to be tricky. But I was surprised to find that the produce I bought for two days only came out to $8. Ah, hope!

But this morning, the fates spoke and when their decree came crashing down on my morning, I was stumped. The juicer broke. In front of me was an entire day’s worth of juicing produce, I was starving and the juicer was broken. My housemate had advised me to go to Whole Foods to get fresh juice while I looked for a juicer and it was a quick fix but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a juicer that wasn’t in use. Buying one is not an option.

It’s over. When I triage the priorities in my life, juicing by far is no where near the top. It gets X’d and is left to die.

The light at the end of this tunnel however isn’t that I tried and failed. I tried. And I didn’t just give it a little go. I made an effort to pull ahead even when I got blue shelled down the side of the cliff. I gave it an effort given the time and resources that I had allotted myself. The bigger revelation however isn’t that I gave it a shot. It’s that I realized the real problem.

Juicing isn’t the answer to my “problem.”

[Not] drinking is.

Moderating that is the real struggle.

I don’t need a juice fast.

I need an alcohol fast.

And writing that makes me want a beer, fast.