My relationship with Alcohol

I started drinking alcohol when I was 15 years old. I remember the first time I drank hard liquor. I was in the bathroom of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, before Homecoming my freshman year in high school. I had taken some moonshine from my parent’s freezer, put it in a water bottle and brought it with me to the restaurant in my purse. My best friend & I at the time, took shots of it in the bathroom and chased it with a Listerine breath strip. This all seemed like a good idea at the time.

All through high school, I continued to drink on the weekends with my friends. We would get alcohol from older siblings or we had some friends that had parents that didn’t mind us drinking, as long as we stayed at their house. We would drink to the point of drunkenness most nights that we drank. We never drank on school nights, it was only the weekends. This was a fairly normal thing to do and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it at the time, I was just having fun being a kid and breaking the rules. Then college came, my first semester at college I was so homesick. I went to Mississippi State and coming from Nashville, that was a huge change of scenery. The town was much smaller, and I only knew my older brother who was there in school. I continued to drink and would black out from time to time. My second semester, I started to make friends and really enjoyed college…started skipping class some, staying out later, drinking more…really living up that freshman year. End of second semester, I was involved in a car accident that was very severe and I had to move back home and live with my parents for a while and could not go back to school at Mississippi State. I had just began to gain independence and it was gone again. I won’t go into details about my car accident, as I have another blog post about that. (If you’re interested you can read that HERE)

Once I was able to live on my own, my friend and I rented an apartment and I started to gain back some independence. I would say that this was my ‘wildest’ phase. This was 2010-2012 to give you a time reference. I met my now husband in 2010 and he was in school in Knoxville at UTK at the time. I would visit him on weekends and we would party and drink. Fast forward to 2013, this is the year that my mom got sober. I remember receiving a text from her that said she had received her 6 month chip. She sent the text to me and my brother. I called my brother and said “huh? did you know mom was an alcoholic?” We both had no idea she was going to AA and did not realize that she had an alcohol addiction. (She is now 9 years sober! Go mom!) My dad is also an alcoholic, so this is when I started to think about my relationship with alcohol, as alcoholism runs in my family. I didn’t really think about it very hard, as I continued to drink for the next 7 years. I am not someone who has ever been to rehab or had a true addiction to alcohol. It finally reached the point that I realized alcohol was no longer adding any value to my life and in fact it was stealing a lot of joy from my life. Although, I did not realize that at the time. Looking back now, it’s all so clear.

So, how did that process look? How did the quitting process go? At the end of 2019, I was pretty deep into a disordered relationship with food, I was undernourished, over exercising, drinking, avoiding emotions, all of the things…and I finally said ENOUGH, I have to deal with this and stop avoiding and numbing. So I made a commitment to myself that staring January first of 2020 I would go to therapy once a week, stop drinking alcohol and get off of the birth control pill (I have a blog post all about the pill HERE) for a full year. So that’s what I did! If you don’t know me personally, I sometimes can take a long time to make a decision, but once I do—I am all in. No turning back. 2020 was quite the year…the year the pandemic began and the year I finally decided to break down all of my walls and unearth a lot of sh*t. The first several months of 2020 without alcohol was definitely a challenge. At this point in my life, I was more of social drinker and so going out to dinner or being around family that drinking was the main topic of conversation was hard at first. It became so clear to me that drinking alcohol was so normalized and when I said I wasn’t drinking right now, most people would ask me why not or ask if I was pregnant or sick or something along those lines. No one really could understand that I was simply choosing not to drink, nothing has to be “wrong” with you to choose not to drink, but it’s so normalized that it’s the one thing that is hard for people to wrap their brain around the concept of choosing not to drink. Anyway, I got off a bit there BUT so all of 2020 I did not drink. Once 2021 came around, I decided to drink if I felt like it, which ended up being probably 10 times during the year of 2021. Once you remove alcohol completely from your life for an extended period of time, you start to realize everything it does to your body and how GOOD it feels without alcohol in your system. During 2021, I never drank to the point of being drunk. January 14, 2022 my husband and I went to dinner with another couple, I had one cocktail at dinner. The next morning I woke up and decided, that was it for me. I am finished drinking. I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t feel my best the next morning, it impacted the next day. It’s not worth it to me, the small buzz for a short period of time is not worth it. You have to decide if it’s worth it to you. As of right now, I have no plans to drink alcohol again. My life is much more vibrant and full without alcohol. I am fully myself. I have no altering substances in my body, I don’t wake up and feel like crap or second guess what I said to someone the night before. I LOVE feeling good. My skin is clearer, my gut is healthier, my brain isn’t foggy, my recovery and performance is better in the gym, my mood is better, my ability to handle stress is better, I am less reactive, I’m more at peace in my body, my relationships are stronger and so pure. I know myself better than I ever have before. Alcohol has no health benefits, it is not good for you. I am not here to try to convince you to stop drinking. All I will say, is I’d encourage you to take a look at your relationship with alcohol and really ask yourself why you drink, what is it adding to your life, can you go without it? If you struggle to think about quitting for a period of time, this may be a sign that you have a reliance on it in some capacity. Maybe not a reliance as an addiction to it, but you may rely on it socially or in some other way. Get curious about it and see what you find.

If you haven’t listened to Huberman Lab Podcast, it’s a great informative podcast and I highly recommend it. The episodes are pretty lengthy, but they are full of amazing information. He has one called What Alcohol Does to your Body, Brain, and Health, if you are interested in listening click HERE. *this links to Spotify* The episode is simply informing you of what alcohol does to your body and brain, it is not trying to convince you one way or another about drinking. Highly recommend listening to it.

I posted a question box on my Instagram a while back asking if you had any questions about how the quitting process went or anything else about alcohol. I received a couple of good questions so I thought I would answer them here.

What do you do when you go out with friends and everyone is drinking? Doesn’t that feel awkward or isn’t it hard to say no?

I either order water or a mocktail. If not drinking is newer to you, then yes it may feel awkward at first, but if you order a mocktail and have something in your hand, then that may take some of the awkwardness out of the situation. If these people are your true friends, they will support you and your decision. At this point, it is not hard for me, it is apart of my life and most people know I don’t drink, so they don’t question it. If they do, I just say no thanks, I don’t drink. I have found that people will justify why they drink to me when I don’t ask them. I think this is interesting. I don’t care if other people drink or not, but when they are around me, they sometimes feel the need to let me know they don’t have a “problem” with drinking they just like to drink. That is totally fine, I didn’t have a “problem” either, I decided it was not adding anything to my life and in fact it was dulling some of me. Anyway, another thing I’d say is remember your why. Why did you choose to stop drinking or take a break? Think about how you’ll feel the next morning if you don’t drink tonight.

Why does being sober make other people feel uncomfortable?

Because drinking is a normal pastime in our society and is so normalized. Simply existing as a non drinker challenges some very strong, widespread beliefs and social norms. The belief that alcohol helps us de-stress, that it’s a great way to have fun, that alcohol helps us loosen up, become spontaneous, that sipping on a fancy cocktail is sexy, that champagne is the way to celebrate, and that we can’t possibly be any fun if we can’t catch a buzz from time to time. You are all of those things you feel when you are buzzed. Start to add more fun to your life, be comfortable in your own skin, let that side of you come out when you are sober.

One more thing I’ll add—if you are sober curious, start doing activities that don’t involve alcohol. If you are used to drinking socially, you’ll come to find that most activities revolve around drinking/eating. Find other activities, see what else you like to do—you may not even know! It’s fun to find out.

In conclusion—

If you need help with your relationship with alcohol, you are NOT WEAK for reaching out for help. Tell someone that loves you that you need help, get the help that you need. You are worth that!

If you have any other questions or you would like to talk more about this topic, don’t hesitate to reach out. Message me on IG