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For me, this one’s easy.

Don’t drink. No alcohol.

I wouldn’t have to think about that answer for even a second. If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, that would be it.

And when I talk about pain, I’m talking about a lot more than a hangover.

I’m talking about the shit decisions I made while drinking. The decisions I then had to live with, deal with, and try to straighten out. Relationships. Money. My health. My performance. The way I handled things. It reached into everything.

That’s the fucking pain.

You finish a drink, but you don’t necessarily finish dealing with what came with it.

Looking back, I can see how much drinking affected my thinking. And for me, it wasn’t limited to the hours I was drinking. Even days later, I didn’t feel clear. I might have been going about my business, making decisions, and telling myself I was fine, but I wasn’t showing up with the clarity I have now.

When you’re living that way regularly, it’s hard to see it. It becomes familiar. You get used to how you feel, how you react, and how you justify things.

Then you get some distance from it, and you start looking back differently.

Why did I make that decision? Why did I handle that conversation that way? Why did I keep putting myself in situations that brought more problems into my life?

I can’t blame every mistake I ever made on alcohol. I made the decisions. I own that. But I can absolutely recognize how much harder I made things for myself by constantly drinking.

There was already enough to figure out. Making a living. Building something. Being there for people. Taking care of myself. I needed a clear head for all of it, and I kept getting in my own way.

That’s what I would want my younger self to understand. Look beyond the night you’re having. Look at what it’s costing you in the rest of your life.

How are your relationships? How are you handling your money? How do you feel? Are you doing what you said you were going to do? Are you making decisions you feel good about when you look back at them?

Those answers matter a hell of a lot more than whether you had a good time for a few hours.

I know life still comes with problems when you don’t drink. I still have decisions to make, things to fix, and days that don’t go the way I want. But I value being able to approach those things with a clear head. I value knowing how I actually feel and being able to think through what I’m doing.

Knowing what I know now, I would have chosen that a whole lot earlier.

I can’t go back and spare my younger self the consequences. But I can be honest about what would have saved me a tremendous amount of pain.

Don’t pick up the drink.

That one decision would have changed a hell of a lot of the decisions that came after it.

— Nicholas Francis