My Year Without Alcohol

In 2017 I spent nearly 6 months sober. Quietly and without telling anyone, I stopped drinking at the end of January that year. This was after years of small breaks – 1 week here, 2 weeks there, even a 30-day Dry January challenge the year prior. At all points, I found myself pulled back into the delicious first sips of red wine and the giddy jolt of that first taste of a very cold beer. As 2017 started coming to an end and I found myself drinking again, I knew I wanted to make a serious change. A change to my life’s direction, my daily patterns, my coping mechanisms. That is when I decided I would give myself one-year, 365 days to see what would come of my life if I chose not to include alcohol in it. On January 1, 2019, I completed my 365 day challenge to myself. Here is what I am walking away with and taking me into another year of adventure, joy, challenge, and growth.

I am an introvert at heart
In my teens, twenties, and even the beginning of my thirties I felt like I needed to be a “social butterfly.” I needed to be surrounded by people – meet for drinks after work, parties on the weekends, drinks, drinks, and more drinks. I think I easily present myself as an extrovert. A lot of training, socialization, and necessary interactions have taught me how to present myself in social settings. For many years, I believed I was an extrovert. A lot of that was because when I drink, I become much more able and willing to interact, talk, chat, etc. Yet, it was painful to do so sometimes. I felt like I needed to drink if I was going to be social. In the moment, it helped remove any feelings of anxiousness and worry of the unknown. It provided a strong commitment to make sure everyone around me was having a good time.

This is not to say I don’t love spending time with family and friends, I do! There is a certain energy I get when I am around wonderful, authentic, and genuine people that I cannot get when I am alone. However, now that I have removed alcohol I recognize much better the moments to say yes to social engagement and the moments I need to say no. Recognizing that I prefer quieter and intimate engagements to loud and chaotic interactions. In this recognition I can now be more present in all moments I find myself – recognizing my strengths and the things I still struggle with.

I am better spouse
I have loved the same man for over 17-years. Each day we work in what I consider a true partnership. We trust each other, we respect other, we challenge each other when necessary, and every single day we show a deep and long-lasting love for one another. Drinking made me a subpar partner. It made me cranky, mouthy, judgmental, and disconnected. Not every time. Not every drink. But on average, I was not the spouse my husband deserved, nor was I the spouse I wanted to be. Never once did he hold this against me, nor did he meet my drinking with guilt and shame. He was and still remains my biggest supporter. Yet, when you know someone as well as I know him, I saw the disappoint and frustration behind his kind and beautiful eyes more than I ever wanted to see.  I knew I was not living up to the potential he recognized in me.

I think if you were to ask him, this last year has created a whole new level to our love and commitment. Being clear minded every morning and every night allows for more connection, communication, and of course, laughter. True laughter deep from the belly that often ends in a snort out my nose and further giggles from him. I am very grateful for him as my friend who did not for one moment judge me and who quietly stood by my side as I transitioned into the spouse, partner, and friend we both deserved. 

I am anxious and I am okay
Trying to contain anxiety with alcohol is like trying to contain a fire with gasoline. Not only does it not contain it, it sparks it into a feverish roller coaster of high intense anxiety to very low bouts of depression. Trying to numb anxiety and depression by using alcohol just pushes it further into the future to deal with at a levels so high you can barely breathe when they hit. Drinking never got rid of the anxiety, it just sent it away to patiently wait for those few moments I finally felt peace to wallop me.  While I thought it was helping me manage my stress and my anxiety around work, social outings, and daily life responsibilities, it was in fact growing my anxiety so hard and so fast I felt like I was spiraling into some type of anxiety attack nearly every day.

To think I could have lessened my anxiety years ago if I had just stopped trying to medicate it with alcohol - what a concept! Yet, I am thankful to have learned that lesson this year. Yes I still have anxiety and yes I still have very rough days. But the rebound is so much more gentler now. A lot of my anxiety was created by the shame and guilt I felt after my drinking. Oh god, what did I say? What did I do? Was I out of line or did I upset anyone? Removing all of those moments of possible anxiety right off the top was incredibly uplifting. There were so many mornings I woke up anxious and filled with guilt for drinking. Not once, not one single morning in the past 365+ days have I woken up feeling guilty or anxious for NOT drinking. That was and still is a profoundly powerful feeling for me.

The world is messy and beautiful

There is a difference between balance and avoidance. Drinking was often a way to avoid the anxiety and the chaos that can be every day life. I was trying to strike what I thought was a balance, but in reality what I was doing was ignoring all of the stress, issues I didn’t want to deal with, and the overall messiness of life. Once I recognized I had anxiety, I thought I had to just do whatever I could to “get rid of the anxiety.” Getting rid of the anxiety meant ignoring life, it meant mindlessly watching tv or scrolling social media with a glass of wine in my hand. I thought you know what, I need “balance” in my life and so my coping through drinking became my balance to the chaos. Yet, this was not balance, this was avoidance. This was not dealing with the messiness of life, and in doing so, just made life messier. Life is messy and it is beautiful. It is both and there is no way to avoid either side of that. The balance comes from being able to ride the wave between messy and beautiful. It means trying not get knocked off by the messiness and staying open to the beauty. It also means accepting that life will always be both, never just one or the other.

I am courageous and I feel fear
Like anxiety and alcohol, fear and alcohol was nearly the same for me. I thought one was helping me deal with other, but in fact it was not. It’s incredible how I thought alcohol made me braver, how it made me step out of comfort zones and face the world.  It did none of these things. At the end of the day, it made me more fearful. Instead of facing my fears, I could hide behind the alcohol and tell myself I will face them another day. Being sober has brought forth this beautiful relationship with fear now. Fear use to hold me back, now it drives me forward. I am okay with being afraid because I am also courageous. I face my fears now - from meeting new people - to defining my life for me and me alone - to climbing 4000 foot mountains - to running alone for many miles at a time .

I communicate with my body
I have to say the biggest thing I am taking with me into the rest of my life is just how absolutely incredible my body is. I never considered myself an athlete or a strong and physically capable person. Yes, I played lacrosse in high school, and was a dancer for many years, and even attempted the crew team freshman year of college. Not even during those times, did I think of myself as someone who was capable of great physically enduring activities. This year changed all that. I have done more to challenge my mind and my body when it comes to physical activity than in the previous 34 years of my life. The most amazing thing is that in challenging my body, I have also learned how to take care of it. To give it rest when its needed, to not push it when it shouldn’t be pushed, and most importantly to listen to it. For years I ignored the messages my body was sending me because I didn’t want to hear them. Now I listen, now I show it respect, and we are in a reciprocal relationship instead of a one-way street.  

​I feel joy  
Real joy. Pure joy. Joy you feel deep in your bones. I am not sure if it ever really existed before this year. This is not to say I was never happy or I didn’t feel love or goodness in my life. But the thing with alcohol is that if you are using it to numb the pain you will also numb all the wonderful emotions you are capable of feeling, including joy. With alcohol in my life, I lived in a dim haze…somewhere between hiding from the world and being fully alive. The deepest depths of gratitude now exist within me because I know what pure joy feels like, I know what belief in myself feels like, I know what the impact of trust and intuition and patience can make in my life. Allowing myself to feel the full range of my emotions from the fear and anxiety to the joy and love showed me just how amazing life can be, how rich and full of beauty it can be. Even within the rough, hurtful, and painful times, there can be joy in the simplest of moments.