Bi-Monthly By Ryan #23

Dear Comrades,

On October 26, 2020, I quit smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. I did so on my own accord, without any formal systems or structures of support. I did not realize at the time how thoroughly this act would change my life so completely, as it did.

On the outside, I may have appeared to quit cold turkey. However, my move was intentional and planned. I was most concerned with removing smoking cigarettes from my writing routines.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol were fully entangled with my writing practice. I smoked while writing, and drank alcohol to pull me out of and away from my writing when I was stuck inside of it. I had such romantic memories of smoking while writing, such as at the bar at Donna’s Cafe in Baltimore City (when bars were smoking and Donna’s was even around!),  and on rooftop palapas during my nights in Oaxaca in 2005, bats flying overhead, eating mosquitoes right out of the air.

I was surprised at how easily I removed cigarettes from my writing routine. I did so by writing. This was yet another moment in my life when I realized the magic of writing.

My writing allows me to make my way towards and into futures which felt impossible in pasts I keep track of and remember by way of writing. Quitting smoking and drinking made me take a long, hard look at my life. As a lifelong activist, I deepened my anti-capitalist and decolonization practice and understanding by way of moving away from  my use of substances. 

I had huge realizations about my country, my life, my family, and my society. This includes major perspective shifts in my already radical views on adoption, alcohol consumption, American cities, consumerism, and white supremacy. My realizations were based on my lived experiences with my family, at three different universities, my 20+ year long career in the food and beverage service industry, and my complexly expansive and multitudinous identity, all of which propels me into a deeply layered perspective of and on everything I see around me.

That Thanksgiving my family gathered on Zoom. I saw my family’s dynamics so clearly on display. I remembered the tactics I developed to survive family holidays, all based around drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.

I knew if I did not stop moving at family gatherings, I improved my odds of not having to experience racism disguised as casual and polite. I knew if I had a drink in my hand, I could immediately numb the sting of whatever microaggression, which added up and amounted to a lifetime that felt much more like a macro-aggression; a pattern I cannot unsee. I allowed myself as many cigarette breaks as necessary, and always had plans with friends in place afterwards for the sake of decompressing and processing.

When I stopped drinking, everything changed. I realized the fragility of friendships with ongoing conversations rooted in and around the consumption of alcohol. I looked up after years of consumption and saw so clearly that I wanted to put distance and spaciousness between my family and I, for the sake of being able to heal, and get perspective on my lived experiences with them.

Love, Ryan <3

linktr.ee/ryanartes 

Ongoing:

• The next session of The Adoptee Open Mic is on Monday, September 1, 2025 at 7pm EST. I am taking the month of August off for an intentional vacation and time for rest. Sign up here to get access to the link to join.

• Please contribute to my GoFundMe campaign if you can afford to do so. Scrolling through the list of donors truly makes me feel so loved. Thank you for loving me y’all. <3

• I am teaching the third run of Letters to Our Homes, a generative letter writing workshop for Black and Brown adoptees only, this fall. See Bi-Monthly By Ryan #20 for my most up-to-date course flyer. I will devote an entire newsletter to Letters to Our Homes in the future.

• Check out my poem on The Quarry, A Social Justice Poetry Database curated by Split This Rock. I was most nervous about recording myself reading my work, so be sure to give that a listen. My nerves almost got the best of me but then I got it after only 12 takes (lol).