Well make that 105 days alcohol free!
I never had an awful relationship with alcohol in my mind, at least so I think. I was always a social drinker. I never drank alone. The appeal never did it for me. A lot of people say it numbs your feelings, but I would say it enhances mine. I never was a mean drunk. In fact, I am usually kind of a joyful and social drunk person. Probably annoying as hell, but definitely not a combative type except for maybe a couple of bouncers. I have been told more often than I care for, ” every picture of you on social media has a beer or some other drink”. I used to brush it off as some of my friends in the corporate world just being jealous. I’m not going to photograph myself struggling with wifi, doing mundane content writing, getting winded going up a hill, doing poorly formed yoga or whatever it is I’m supposed to show the world that I’m doing.
Contrary to many who grew up in the south, I was not one of those who grew up in a home where alcohol is haram. My father had a European upbringing, so the American logic of waiting until age 21 was beyond his comprehension. Even on my Southern side, this was never an issue. Both parents were members of the Episcopal church; they are also known as Whiskeypalians. They are sort of the smart version of Protestant that does not give in to this temperance stuff that many southern churches have going for them. . My southern grandparents used to drive to Florabama every Sunday to spend their golden years. Bless their hearts.
I was not a huge drinker in high school because of this. Maybe it was because I was not very popular, maybe it was because I preferred, uh, some other green substance at the time. I started to drink more when I started college because I lived on the Gulf Coast, where you pretty much need to always be drunk there, or so I thought the time. I also would go overboard on Mardi Gras. I had a toxic relationship at the beginning of college, which might have fueled some of it. I ended up finding a much more stable relationship later on, but this guy and I would easily clear a six-pack of beer each after work or class on a Wednesday afternoon. I never got in much trouble with my drinking even then. I never got caught drinking when I was underage, no DUIS, no severe drunken incidents besides making an ass of myself a few times. I went to class and did alright. I kept up with what I needed to do. I stopped drinking most liquor when I was 21/22 years old and mostly stuck to wine and beer all through my 20s and into my 30s.
In my big heydays of living in Prague, I would go out 4-5 nights a week and have at least 3-4 beers or glasses of wine. This is a conservative estimate. I also have friends worldwide that I know from Couchsurfing, Couchsurfing camps, and other travels. I would sometimes overdo it then as well. I never really thought I was getting excessive until I won “an ethanol award” for being one of the drunkest at some Couchsurfing gathering for New Years four years. I was quite mortified about it, to be honest. I started to scale back. I was trying to finish my master’s degree and wanted to make more professional connections. I didn’t want to come across as the little ethanol queen anymore. In the end, I did lower my consumption to just a few drinks, maybe 2 nights a week and would indulge a bit more for Couchsurfing camps and special reunions with friends. This was basically how I did things until the pandemic.
When the Covid pandemic came around, I nearly became a total teetotaler from the start. I attended zoom parties, but the idea of getting smashed with your friends in a different time zone did not appeal to me. I was not too fond of the beer in Guatemala enough. I also was completely alone. I would stop by my favourite local brewery in the US and have a couple of ciders once a week and maybe get a growler to go. When I went back to Europe, I hardly drank, except for a Prague reunion, a wedding, and a short trip to Italy in the summer of 2020 when Europe was almost back to normal. I had a couple of sober months this autumn until election week, where I got pretty blitzed. I decided after waking hungover the day after Biden won to put drinking off again. I said until the holidays..then. It turned into dry January… 90-day challenge.. a 100-day challenge. Now I am not sure. I think I will keep it up for the time being. I don’t plan to do this forever, but I like how it feels on me for the moment. I have many uncertainties going on right now; I really don’t think alcohol makes it better. I’ve not responded that well to alcohol in the last couple of years, no it doesn’t make me do anything embarrassing anymore, but my body does not react well at all to it.
Not drinking and the lack of interaction has given me a lot of time to reflect. Sometimes it is not always fun because I’ll end up reflecting on something mortifying that I did in 2006, 2011, 2015 or last year even. I overthink a lot on things I cannot change, but this could be more because of the lack of social interaction and travel than being sober. I’ve refreshed some foreign language skills and reevaluated some major life decisions, and raised some potential career paths from the dead that I sort of buried away some years ago. Unfortunately, I have not seen a major change in weight loss as most claim, but that could be due to lockdown laziness. It did save me from potential weight gain, and I feel like I have a less puffy appearance, probably due to being more hydrated.
Anyways, 105 days is not a big deal. I have friends that are going on 3-5 years plus. I doubt this will ever happen to me, but I am happy that I have proven to myself that I can control one aspect of my life at this unpredictable time.
What about you? Have you ever cut back on a habit for an extensive time or for good? Tell me about it!