Good morning, friends!

I had my last sip of alcohol on December 31, 2020.

There were several things that led to my decision. The first was a dinner that made me ask myself the question, “What role does alcohol play in my life?”

Anthony and I visited Miami in November 2020, and we had dinner with Matteo and Alex, the co-founders of sleep fitness startup Eight Sleep. At dinner, they didn’t ... drink. I was taken aback because this was the first time I had met people my age who opted out of ordering a bottle of wine at dinner. They told us they stopped drinking in 2019, and their personal and professional lives had benefited immensely.

I was intrigued.

When we got back to our hotel, I listened to this podcast episode in which three founders and an investor explain their decision to abstain from alcohol. “Start with a week and focus on how well you feel when you wake up in the morning,” Matteo says in the podcast. “To me, that was the No. 1 reason — how well I feel on Saturday morning, and I can really maximize my weekend.”

I thought about this for an entire month, but it didn’t stop me from drinking. And then when I woke up hungover with a massive headache on Jan. 1, 2021, I tweeted this:

Polina @polina_marinova

Has anyone completely eliminated alcohol for a prolonged period of time? If so, how has it affected your work/sleep/social life?

January 2nd 2021

74 Retweets2,249 Likes

The response to this tweet was enough to solidify my decision to quit cold turkey. People cited clear thinking, more energy, better sleep, and an overall increase in life satisfaction.

It was a weird time to be sober — I mean, we had all just undergone a year of lockdowns. You’d think something strong on the rocks would ease all the uncertainty in the world. It turns out a lot of people thought that, and it ended in tragic ways.

A new study reports that the number of Americans who died of alcohol-related causes increased precipitously during the first year of the pandemic. The study found that the number of alcohol-related deaths soared, rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year — an increase of 25 percent in the number of deaths in one year. Young adults ages 25 to 44 experienced the greatest increases in alcohol-related deaths in 2020, rising nearly 40% over the previous year.

Forty percent is not a statistic — it’s a crisis. Yet here’s the harsh reality: As startling and disturbing as the figure is, it’s also not surprising.

I have never had an alcohol problem, but in 2020, I realized that we were visiting the liquor store far more than ever before. That’s because the liquor store was the only business on our block that hadn’t been forced to shut its doors. (Liquor stores were considered “essential businesses.”)

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t using alcohol to self-medicate. I was using it to summon my creativity. I had just left my job at Fortune, and I was now working on The Profile full-time. I did my reading during the day and reserved the writing for the night when I could have a glass or two of wine to get “in the zone.”

In other words, I genuinely believed that drinking had the power to unleash my creativity. I had convinced myself that when I was buzzed, I was a better writer. One time when I was working on a longform feature, I was stuck on it all day until I had wine that evening and banged out a 4,000-word draft in a matter of two hours.

This is not uncommon for people who do creative work. We’re all familiar with the “alcoholic writer” trope. (Think Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, David Carr, Hunter S. Thompson, Aaron Sorkin, and many, many others.) Drinking is not a problem until it is. You can look at many of these writers as creative savants who were able to produce masterpieces under the influence, but I think they were able to do it in spite of it.

At just 30 years old, Hemingway was the most famous writer in the United States. In October 1954, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his mastery of the art of narrative.”

But he was also a heavy drinker and often used alcohol as a temporary reprieve from his loneliness. Toward the end of his life, Hemingway underwent electroshock therapy twice, but the treatment affected his memory, and his writing began to suffer immensely. He reportedly could not write more than a single sentence in the course of four hours. In 1961, Hemingway's life came to a tragic end when he shot himself with a shotgun in his Idaho home.

Of course, not all of us use alcohol for the same purpose and not all of us use it irresponsibly. But I urge you to be aware and reflect on the same question I asked myself in 2020: “What role does alcohol play in my life?” It may be a social lubricant, an escape from reality, or a way to celebrate life events.

It may not make sense for you to quit altogether, but for those who have quit, I’ll always remember what Synthesis founder Chrisman Frank told me: “Still haven’t met anyone who has quit drinking and regretted it.”

If you feel comfortable, reply to this email, and share your stories on this topic. Note that I might synthesize your collective wisdom (anonymously) in a future newsletter edition.

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THE PROFILE DOSSIER: On Wednesday, premium members received The Profile Dossier,  a comprehensive deep-dive on a prominent individual. It featured Garrett McNamara, the surfer chasing a 100-foot wave. Become a premium member and read it below.

The Profile

The Profile Dossier: Garrett McNamara, the surfer chasing a 100-foot wave

Garrett McNamara doesn’t surf waves. He surfs sea monsters. The professional big wave surfer is an 8-time Guinness World Record holder for the largest wave ever surfed, a 78-foot wall of water. “I didn't realize it was that big of a wave until it came down from above and just boom right on my shoulders and it almost squashed me,” he…

Read more

4 days ago · 2 likes · Polina Pompliano

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✨ A WORD FROM OUR PARTNER: We introduced Clay, a digital home for your relationships, in the last issue. Today, we’ve got a Q+A with the founders.

What struggles did you face in maintaining your relationships before you built Clay? "We built Clay out of a deeply personal need. We’re both immigrants or first-generation, and our relationships were the most important things we had growing up, but we realized they didn’t really have a digital home. Our relationships were scattered across apps, social networks, notebooks, address books, business cards — it was a mess.

So we set out to design a beautiful product that pays attention to the nuances of relationships and helps people be more thoughtful with the many different types of people they interact with, personally and professionally. Clay helps you deepen your relationships by allowing you to set reminders, take notes, and be reminded to reach out to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while." Try 60 days FREE with this link.

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PROFILES.

— The philanthropist who gave away $12 billion in 2 years [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The first NBA player with MS
— The TikTok heartthrob popular with middle-aged moms
— The Staten Island food critic
— The queen of crime-solving
— The charitable organization buying luxury property
— The world's crisis-housing provider

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The philanthropist who gave away $12 billion in 2 years: MacKenzie Scott has become one of the most generous and surprising philanthropists in the world. Scott — the writer, first Amazon employee, and former wife of company founder Jeff Bezos — has taken control of her postdivorce fortune. She has given away more than $12 billion of her now $52 billion net worth in a matter of two years. Her playbook? Appearing out of nowhere with a huge check, without strings or fanfare, and then vanishing. If you read one thing today, let it be this. (Fortune)

“If you’ve been doing this work, you know the name MacKenzie Scott—and you know there’s nothing you can do to get to this person.”

The first NBA player with MS: Chris Wright’s life changed overnight. In 2012, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and doctor after doctor told him his career was over. Wright had every reason to turn bitter, but he refused. A decade later, he remembers the decision he made then, and the resolve he found: He wouldn't retire, he would relearn how to walk and run, and he'd damn sure play basketball again. "I never cried one time, I never had that feeling it was over," he says. "I just said, 'We're going to figure this out.'” (Sports Illustrated)

"I kept grinding out, told myself I would walk again, run again, jump, shoot, dribble, everything.”

The TikTok heartthrob popular with middle-aged moms: When he shot to fame last summer, TikTok influencer William White, now 22, was treated with bemusement by the media. This was a handsome young guy who’d cultivated a huge fandom of mostly Gen X women by winking, smiling, dancing, and occasionally lip-syncing to a soundtrack of ’70s and ’80s tunes. When feuding among White’s middle-aged women fans got ugly, he continued raking in the cash. (Input)

“To have this gorgeous kid dancing to songs that were the fabric of our youth? It was amazing. Somebody was actually seeing us.”

The Staten Island food critic: Danny Mondello, a Rossville, Staten Island-native is behind the wildly popular TikTok account “Meals_by_cug.” Cug is short for cugine, which means “cousin” in Italian, but is also a colloquial term used to describe an Italian-American. He has amassed 1.6 million TikTok followers and nearly half a million on Instagram, all tuning in for his food reviews. Here’s the story of how he became an internet sensation. (The New York Post)

“This all happened so quick, I haven’t had a chance take it all in.”

The queen of crime-solving: No individual has had a closer view of the way the science of crime-solving has changed in the past 40 years than forensic scientist Angela Gallop. She started out in the 70s and cracked some of the UK’s most notorious cold case murders. But today she fears the whole field — and justice itself — is at risk. (The Guardian)

“Once Angela’s decided to do something, then that something will happen.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The world's crisis-housing provider: As millions of refugees fled the war in Ukraine, Airbnb became an unlikely vector for direct monetary aid. Inspired by a handful of influencers, Airbnb users started booking stays in cities like Kyiv, encouraging their hosts to pocket the money. Screenshots of Ukrainians thanking their benefactors circulated across the internet, and the company took notice. To better facilitate this unconventional use of their platform, Airbnb waived service fees in the country. It also announced a program that would house up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees for stays it expected to last a few weeks. Here’s how the company reinvented itself as a crisis-housing provider. (Curbed)

“The lesson is that in a world of darkness, in a world of destruction, kindness still exists.”

The charitable organization buying luxury property: The leaders of the Black Lives Matter charitable organization bought a luxury property boasting more than 6,500 square feet, more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, several fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for more than 20 cars. They paid $6 million in cash. Has the money that’s been donated to the cause of racial justice been spent in ways that benefit the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally? (New York Magazine)

“They’re all indicators that the money may not be going where it’s supposed to be going.”

✨ This installment of The Profile is free for everyone. If you would like to get full access to all of the recommendations, including today’s audio and video sections, sign up below.

AUDIO TO HEAR.

Francis Ngannou on chasing freedom: Francis Ngannou, the UFC heavyweight champion of the world, values personal freedom, and his actions prove it. He’s always believed that you’re either fighting for money or freedom, and you’ve got to give up one for the other. Ngannou doesn’t believe that the UFC contracts are fair, and he’s been vocal about it. He once said, “They may think I have no options, but I am a free man.” Here’s why he is exploring new avenues of payment, including Bitcoin. (Link available to premium members.)

Susan Cain on channeling pain into creativity: Author Susan Cain shares an interesting data point: “There have been studies done that have shown that a wildly disproportionate number of creative people, were orphaned when they were children.” With creativity, she says, there’s a long intellectual tradition between creativity and sorrow. (Link available to premium members.)

VIDEOS TO SEE.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine: If you want to better understand the Russia-Ukraine conflict, this (free) documentary is a must-watch. It goes back to 2014, and details how things escalated when Vladimir Putin decided to recognize the separatist territories in Eastern Ukraine as “independent.” (Link available to premium members.)

Mellody Hobson on owning her identity: Mellody Hobson is the president and co-CEO of Ariel Investments. One time, her husband George Lucas told her: “Mellody, you’re going to have a great life.” She asked him why, and he said, “Because the early part was so hard. If the early part’s really easy, then you have the hard stuff later. But you got it over with, and it made you tough.” On a daily basis, she marvels at the life she’s built and doesn’t regret the hard experiences because they allowed her to have “a tremendous amount of compassion for those struggling in our society.” Here’s how she became the truest version of herself. (Link available to premium members.)