Kevin's AT Thru Hike

Day 80, Saturday, 6/4 – I was hoping a night of rest would fix the heel pain I had from yesterday, but the pains returned immediately. Good thing I only had 3 miles to hike into Harpers Ferry.

Harpers Ferry is the unofficial halfway point along the Appalachian Trail and is the home of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC). Half Time and I arrived in Harpers Ferry before the ATC opened, so we headed over to a coffee shop a block away. We sat outside, ate breakfast, and drank some coffee.

At the coffee shop, we went on the internet and started doing some self diagnosing of my heel pain. I’ve come to the conclusion that I have achilles tendonitis. It’s essentially an overuse injury, which makes a lot sense. I have been pushing it hard lately, and have not been stretching. I’ve decided I’m going to slow down, stretch, and spend time rolling out my feet and calves.

After coffee, we headed over to the ATC, which is essential a little Appalachian Trail museum. They have a neat topographic map of entire trail. We also got our photo taken for the photo album. The ATC has a photo album of all thru hikers from 1979 to present. I’m the 567th hiker to pass through Harpers Ferry this year.

We then resupplied food at the local outfitter. The food was expensive, and the selection was less than ideal. It’s going to be a lot of snacks and candy for the next 2 days. We grabbed lunch at the Cannonball Deli after we resupplied. We had exceptionally good service from Yassir.

My heel was in pain all day today. The pain was bad enough that it would distract me from conversations. I’ve decided to zero again tomorrow, I need to rest up before I hike out again.

Genie, Splitzy, Birthday Sandwich, Half Time and I all hung around Harpers Ferry for the next few hours. I spent time charging my electronics and catching up on some writing. We then got a short tour of a historic building in Harpers Ferry and grabbed dinner at the Rabbit Hole.

We all hiked out of town and are camping on the bank of the Potomac just outside of Harpers Ferry (6 miles today to mile 1027).

On another note, today marks 3 years since I stopped drinking alcohol, so I’ll share some thoughts. I don’t consider myself an alcoholic. I never had a real problem with it, at least not how most people typically think about someone with an alcohol problem. I’d get drunk on weekends and have an occasional drink on a weekday night. This seems fairly typical for a person in their late teens and early twenties. Also, it was not difficult for me to stop drinking. I decided one day that I would stop, so I did.

Well maybe I did have a problem with drinking. The last day I drank was a weekday, I overindulged, made a fool of myself, and woke up on my kitchen floor. I had thrown up in my sleep. This wasn’t the first time I had woken up in this state. I can remember six instances, but there might be more. This was certainly dangerous as it risked asphyxiation.

There are a lot of benefits associated with not drinking. I avoid all the calories in alcoholic drinks. I also avoid all the calories in the food I used to eat while drinking. I also don’t get hangovers, which is disruptive to a workout routine. So there’s no question that I’m better off from a physical health perspective by not drinking.

But then of course, there are benefits to drinking. No one would drink if there weren’t benefits; it’s a powerful drug. It’s liquid courage, it’ll take the edge off at the end of the day, it tastes good, it allows for a carefree lifestyle. It frees you from your inhibitions.

However, being released from inhibitions has consequences. Drinking allowed me to make decisions that I wouldn’t have made had I not been drinking. Naturally, these are the actions that became regrets. Alcohol is present in many of my regretful memories. I’ve been my worst when drinking. I suppose I realized that enough was enough, so I stopped.

An interesting thing happened when i initially stopped drinking. Without drinking, getting drunk, or being hungover, I found myself with a whole lot more free time. My mind was clear and I had time to think.

As a consequence, a whole lot of memories came flooding back. Things that I hadn’t thought of in a while. Things that I quickly realized needed to be sorted out. I didn’t realize how much alcohol had distracted me from from personal issues.

I dove into my personal issues, and learned a lot. Early on, I blamed my problems on alcohol. That’s when I swore I wouldn’t drink anymore.

Alcohol has certainly been the cause of plenty of problems, but I have since come to realize that I blamed more problems on alcohol than I should have. Seriously, it was easy to think I would be a better person once I gave the stuff up. But as time passed, I realized I have issues even without alcohol. We all have our demons.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss drinking sometimes. I miss the carefree attitude. I also miss the social aspect of drinking; the camaraderie and bonding that can come from a night of drinking. I miss drinking with some friends that I used to drink with. It’s also bizarre knowing exactly how I’d act if I were to let loose and get drunk. There’s an entire personality there that’s no longer activated.

Abstinence from alcohol has lead to personal growth and maturation that likely would not have occurred had I not stopped drinking. Even still, I’m not entirely convinced that complete abstinence is the optimal course of action. But it’s worked out fine enough these past 3 years. I’m also not sure that I’d have a healthy relationship with alcohol if I were to pick it up again. Regardless, I swore to myself I wouldn’t drink anymore, and I’ll feel like I failed if I do start drinking again. So I probably won’t ever drink again. I’m ok with that, and I suppose that reason is as good a reason as any.