Rob Cheng's Blog
Three Months Sober

April 4, 2024 was my wife, Solange’s, 39th birthday, and we had a little celebration at a local restaurant. This year, I had tapered my alcohol intake substantially. However, with any excuse, me and Solange’s friends began pouring elixirs down our throats. I had three craft beers, nothing extreme, but I began to feel the profound pull that booze had on my life.

I began drinking in early 70’s long before I turned 18, the age restriction at the time. That’s over 50 years of drinking. I grew up in Bowie Maryland, and my friend’s and I would imbibe Tuborg and Michelob in dark parking lots or the back seats of cars. I went to college and the first week, I turned 18. Now I could legally drink. In Ithaca NY, the local beer was Genesee Cream Ale and six packs went for $1 and a pitcher sometime on sale for $.50. I started experimenting with gin and tonics. I started at Texas Instruments in the early 80’s and Coor’s Light became my poison of choice. At one point, I challenged myself to drink every day and guess what. I nailed it. At this point, my thinking was that I could drink often and as much as I wanted, as long as I could maintain a successful career.

When I moved to South Dakota, Gateway was a hard drinking company, and I fit right in. I moved to Dublin Ireland to run’s Gateway’s European operations, and I fell in love with Guiness. Alcohol and the pub life were ingrained into the Irish life. I think Santa Claus was Irish.

I left Gateway and the frigid plains of South Dakota, single and millionaire, and moved to South Carolina. The good news is that my drinking didn’t get worse despite ample free time and cash, but it sure as heck didn’t get much better. I did write some pretty cool songs in my nightly sloshy state.

Then I moved to Brazil where I finally married my beautiful wife, Solange. She is not much of a drinker (was that a sign?), but I continued boozing regularly. In fact, I moved to wine and bourbon. I was in the big leagues.

Throughout all of this, I have had a fantastic life, and accomplished many common measures of success so the drinking couldn’t have been a hindrance. At least, that is the way I rationalized. In the meantime, as I aged, some of my friends (drinking buddies) began falling. Dougie, a dear friend in Rio de Janeiro, passed in his apartment with five empy bottles of wine by his bed. Then it was national news when Mike Hammond (Hammer), passed away as another victim of acohol abuse.

Was I an alcoholic? Of course not. Or so I would say. I could quit any time, which I honestly believed. Until I tried. I could quit at will, but as soon as their was any excuse, I was back on the train. Until three months ago, when I made the commitment to just stop.

I have not suffered any withdrawal symptoms, but this is not easy, alcohol is everywhere and 100% ingrained in my life. God only knows how much time I have wasted being drunk / unconscious, inebriated, but suddenly, I have a lot of free time on my hands. I have decided to go to the gym.

And maybe, just maybe, I will start blogging again. Like this one here.

Technology is robbing my children of their childhood

I am a work at home dad, and I love my kids. Sometimes, like now, my heart is broken because my kids are addicted to technology and video games.

Relative to the other kids, Teddy and Jesse are great, but relative to their potential, technology is robbing them of the best times of their life. Both of them have their talents (Teddy golf and Jesse piano), but they are unable to explore these talents because rather than practicing, challenging themselves, and growing, their free time is wasted mindlessly watching videos or video games. They lose hours. Sure, as a parent, I try to be vigilant and stern, but it is exhausting and a losing battle.

My children now 15 and 13 years old lack many social skills of children of prior generations. Rather than interact with other kids, and learning to “get along”, they run home and myopically staring at a seven inch screen.

Perhaps the most worrisome is the skill of observation. They believe that the world is to be experienced through a 2 dimensional screen that tickles two senses (see and hear) and ignores the other three senses (touch, taste and smell). Real world is a beautifully complex ecosystem, and yet their experience is limited to what their devices can deliver.

At times, it is overwhelming, but then I realize it is not the children that are lost in this artficial fake technology bubble, it is the adults. God help us.

Get Out of Neutral

For one year, the world has been stuck in neutral. People are waiting for an invisible hand to move the gear shift back to DRIVE. The masses flock to Netflix and Facebook hoping that somehow the world will become unstuck. Life is short and I don’t want to waste a day and certainly not a year being stuck. We are the invisible hand and our actions define whether the gear shift will move the vehicle forward. I refuse to live my life in neutral.

Myrtle Beach 1/2 Marathon 2018




It was a very windy day for this race. At times, I felt I was running and not moving. I am proud to say that I finished in my personal record time on my 8th 1/2 marathon. 2:20.

One Meal a Day

I finished my 6th 1/2 marathon in March 2017. The day after I finished, I was achy and contemplative. I asked myself, “Why do I eat three meals a day?” I came to the conclusion that there are two reasons. First, everyone else does. It is ingrained into human culture throughout the entire world. The words (breakfast, lunch, dinner) translate perfectly into every language that I have studied. And then second, I realized that as a boy, we learned it in school because the government mandated it. We all remember the food groups and three square meals, etc. Warning bells are going off. Why is the government so concerned about how often I eat?

Then I decided that I would eat one meal a day. I had no idea what to expect. Simply put, it has been amazing experience, and I doubt that I will return to typical human eating patterns. Here are some of the benefits of eating once a day.

Energy.

Sometimes, but not all, I would feel lethargic after eating lunch. I now never feel that way. In fact, I have more energy now than any time that I can remember in my life.

Time.

With the extra energy, I have more time to get more done each day. I am more productive at work, and I have more time for exercise.

Sleep.

I sleep better than any time in memory perhaps because I have less food to process. Or maybe because I have more time to burn calories.

Food.

I love the benefits but the most important one is that food has never tasted so good. I look forward to each time I eat, and I relish each bit. It does not matter. It always tastes great. Sometimes, not so often, I feel hungry, and I just think, “It will taste even better, when I sit down.”

Weight Loss.

It was not my plan but I have lost some weight. The day after I ran the 1/2 marathon, I weighed 165 pounds, and I have dropped to roughly 150 pounds, maybe a little less. I honestly feel no desire to put back on the weight. I feel like I am running faster and I feel healthier without the extra weight.

It has been 9 months since I started this regimen and I feel it is sustainable. The only downside is people sometimes look at me strange when I choose not to eat with them.