It Won’t Matter

Audio version now available.

I wish I could deliver a message to my younger self. Many messages, really, to many earlier versions of me. Like that the penis my college friends drew on my forehead with permanent marker when I passed out would not, in fact, impact the rest of my life. Or that leaving my sales-manager job at a steel company that was for sale upgrading to a steel company that later declared bankruptcy was not, actually, the stupidest move ever. Or even more recently, that the knee injury I suffered playing soccer last summer was not the end, and that I was not yet relegated to the chair workouts Instagram feels are age appropriate.

Those tips would have been useful. But in mid-March 2026, I am thinking about the advice I would give a late 20-teens version of me about Saint Patrick’s Day.

Sobriety is hard, and the holidays make it undeniably harder. My wife once gave me a keg of green beer for my March surprise-birthday celebration. I have partied next to the green river in Chicago, deciphered wicked-drunk accents in Boston, watched families with deep lineage carry family crests through the streets of Saint Paul, and swilled stouts outside Wynkoop for Saint Patrick’s parade in Denver. We baked thousands of loaves of Irish soda bread with whiskey-soaked currants at our bakery. I’ve raised a pint in salute of step dancers and bag pipers and karaoke renditions of, “Tonight’s the Night for Drinking.” The memories all made sobriety so much harder. How could I leave all of that joy and revelry behind? How does the current version of me answer that question from the me of a decade ago?

It won’t matter.

Human brains are like compost bins. The more we tumble the contents around, the more time we give our brain cells to ferment and decompose, the more our memories change from one discarded form into something else entirely. Have you ever composted celery leaves with coffee grounds, orange peels, some egg shells, and a handful of dried leaves? Give it a couple of months, turning it once in a while, and the resulting earth nutrient doesn’t resemble any of its inputs. Except the egg shells. Those don’t decompose, and our garden is proof of concept that we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the internet. It looks like someone took a baseball bat to a bunch of lightbulbs where we grow tomatoes.

The point is, Saint Patrick’s Day has morphed into something else entirely for me. I still love the holiday as a late-winter signal of spring. I love corned beef and cabbage. I love that it kicks off college basketball upset season. I love wearing my green and white Mardi Gras beads for which I have no other purpose. I love watching talented kids wear fancy wigs and dresses while their dancing bottom halves supporting stoic, motionless torsos. I love that I’m 12.5% Irish. And I love asking people, “What’s the craic,” and seeing the looks of bewilderment on their faces. I still love Saint Patrick’s Day. This day so closely associated with overconsumption and mild debauchery doesn’t have a thing to do with alcohol for me.

I’m not tempted to drink. I no longer lament my alcoholism nor feel the sadness of early sobriety. I don’t get mad at the TV news anchors who drink a beer on the March 17th morning newscasts. When I see drunks stumbling around with foam Guinness hats, it doesn’t send me into a tirade about Big Beverage or mid-week drunkenness.

It just doesn’t matter. And my message–to the still drinking and suffering, or the newly sober and agonizing–versions of me is simple. It won’t matter. It just won’t.

For a long time, recovery is about alcohol. Sobriety is as tedious as picking eggshells from my compost. But then it stops being about alcohol. Growth is about watching with awe my kids as young adults and late teens. It’s about the side hug my wife gives me when, for the very last time, we walk off the front porch of the home where we raised our family. Growth is about having a very short list of things that are truly important, and that list not containing anything that I’m giving more weight than it deserves.

Growth is about eating a cheese-dripping corned beef on rye while watching the first round of March Madness knowing that nothing is missing. Nothing.

I’m not missing anything. That’s what matters.

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