On Sobriety
Today marks a full year of sobriety. No alcohol. No drugs either, but that’s always been the case. To clear up some misconceptions:
No, the dewy glow that left my body during hangovers has not since returned in the time I decided to stop poisoning myself. I am not thinner. I still get inexplicably tired sometimes.
Yes, my breath stopped being ass all the time. I no longer call in sick after drinking too heavily. I say things with intention and mean them much more of the time, not because alcohol made me do it. And I generally have fewer regrets for my actions. I also tend to have way more energy than I’m used to, and a significant amount of extra money, too.
This past year, I realized a lot how much people freely share opinions about how I treat my body and what I put in it, which was true even before I stopped drinking. Pre-2019, I’d tell people I don’t do drugs. “Coffee is a drug. Alcohol is a drug.” I’d tell people I’m dieting. “Saul, carbs are good for you, don’t avoid them. Dieting is dangerous, don’t do it. Unless it’s keto because that’s the one I do. What are you doing the next three hours? I’d like to be super repetitive about what makes it so good. Oh excuse me though, I have to go eat a cake; It’s cheat day, and I’m no longer intermittently fasting. … Don’t starve yourself, Saul.”
The one I noticed most of all this past year, though, is when I sipped a drink. “Oh… you’re not really sober.” I mean, sure. I just consumed fewer intoxicants than a dose of NyQuil, but you’re right, I took that sip because I’m clearly getting buzzed; I just missed that crazy feeling of escape a teaspoon of cocktail gives me once a month.
I think it’s because the word “sober” often carries with it the suggestion that a person was told to go get clean. I wasn’t. But before I stopped drinking, I was still getting pretty drunk at least three nights out of the week. And then it just felt it added up to much more than that in times I stopped noticing: getting “tipsy” at brunch mimosa; bee-lining it to the alcohol station at every single house party; going out to work events a couple nights a week, but then accepting almost every invitation on top of that, “What are you doing tonight? We’re heading to Castro.” So I took a month off.
Predictably, during sobriety, I started noticing similar habits of most the people around me, and my lifestyle changed a lot. I pretty much gave up on bars, but I also cut back on a lot of house party going. I think the latter is its own mental exploration. For the purposes here: there were a number of times I felt I wouldn’t enjoy myself unless drunk, and I think it was fairly subconscious that I just began saying no to social outings more often.
The hardest thing mostly has been a pretty unrelenting amount of peer pressure. A lot of people get it, but just as many are sad they can’t share a drink with me at times of celebration, sadness, or just because it’s nice to do between friends. They are little moments of pressure that quickly add up to a lot. And as far as reasons go to resume drinking, this one is pretty much tied up for first place with–surprising to me–missing the taste of alcohol.
I do think I will resume drinking this year in very, very limited amounts. I now write a spirits column for a prominent newspaper, and I’m not blaming the media here for enabling a habit. But I can’t very well go on in that capacity in total sobriety.
Generally speaking, though, I didn’t want to have a drink this past year because I knew I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself. Having one would have meant two, and having two would have gotten me buzzed, which would have led to a third drink. And then by the end of the week, I would have gotten drunk a couple times, telling myself it’s totally normal to do, to not be hard on myself, and to do better next week.
I think I have more self control now, and a greater and continued interest in–honestly–never being buzzed again. I feel like it’s one of the hardest things to process for friends, that I don’t actually miss the numbing of my brain. I thought I’d miss it the most. But even in just the first month of quitting, I felt I’d woken up from a stupor that had lasted years. The world is harsher now without alcohol. Words hurt more, and plenty of situations leave me with that feeling of, “Gawd, this day was horrid, I need a drink.”
But I also feel less afraid of myself and, bluntly, facing the mental challenges and social challenges that so often I covered up by drinking. It is hard to imagine stepping off this growth trajectory on days that things get challenging.
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