Member-only story

One Decision a Year: How Small Changes Create Big Transformations

AKA: John French
5 min readJan 31, 2025

--

A pivotal year without substances changed my life.

I believe in making one new decision that affects your everyday life and sticking with it for one year. Just one new answer can change so much over time, and it’s easy to incorporate as a reflexive measure because you’re just giving up one paradigm.

I believe in it because I know it works, and it began very simply after a bad night out.

The Wake-Up Call

I woke up with a brutal, pounding hangover and the faint whispers of shame as darkly lit memories flooded my head. My shoes were still on. I had burned a hole in a favorite dress and I reeked like smoke even though I don’t smoke.

Over the years, I had lots of conversations about quitting things. Eager to get into adult activities, experience new realities, look glamorous, I had picked up a myriad of socially affirming vices from art school. Pot, expensive arty clothes, smoking, working under extremely caffeinated circumstances, staying up too late, procrastinating on dealing with money, eating strange and inconsistent diets, staying out all night to do karaoke and making out with folks who weren’t worthy of holding my hand.

The Socially Acceptable Vice

--

--

AKA: John French
AKA: John French

Written by AKA: John French

Time travels, stays up all night. Anonymous for safety. If you want to request an article topic, or want to support me, simply buymeacoffee.com/johnfrench !

No responses yet