I have spent all of my adult life as someone who drinks.  In fact I prided myself on being able to hold my own, be one of the guys and, often, drink guys twice my size under the table.  I was absolutely the cool chick who never got emotional or hysterical – just happy and fun.  So it was ok that I drink, because I’m not a bad drunk.

Before I go any further into this post this week I want to be clear that while I am making some conscious choices around alcohol based on my experience, if you feel that your drinking has become a problem for you please seek help as I am not a medical professional. While alcohol has become a very normal part of our lives and culture the fact remains that it is an addictive and toxic substance that our bodies are not really meant to consume. Making the choice to abstain can be more or less difficult depending on your situation and only you will know the right ways to support yourself if you choose that path. Your local distress centre is available with resources should you need help finding services in your area.

As my priorities in life changed I still found ways to justify why it was ok to retain a space for alcohol…I cut down significantly but it was still a fixture of my weekends.  No longer was I going to bars or staying out all night at friends houses doing jello shots but I still cracked a beer by 2 PM while working around the house.  I may not have been “drunk” at the end of the day, but I still had plenty and as time went by I felt the effects of my casual home beers more and more on a Sunday.

And no matter how well I kept it reigned-in most of the time, I always hit that ONE TIME every so often when there were jello shots or there was social drinking or I just wasn’t paying attention and I drank more than I needed to and the less I drank on the regular, the more I paid for it the day after over consuming. 

At the end of 2019 I had just passed my written exam for my personal training certification and was preparing for my in person physical exam.  Since July I had been working as a project coordinator for a company that was run by a bunch of guys who, to say they liked to drink, would be putting it mildly.  I had fit right in from the start when in one of my first weeks I managed to coordinate the schedule while drinking several beers with my boss at the bar on Friday afternoon – it was that sort of place.  And after working for an addiction treatment facility for five years that was both super weird, and very fun….for a bit.  But after having been witness to the devastation that sort of lifestyle has on people while I was at the addiction treatment facility got me feeling less and less good about it as the months went on…sure a fun Friday at the bar “working” was a treat now and then but when it turns into every single week it began to lose its appeal.  Especially when we were constantly having to do “emergency” work on a Sunday because the schedule we laid out, and sent to all the employees, was wrong. 

By the time we got to December I was preparing to start my side hustle in fitness and was thinking that maybe I would ease up on the drinking further.  I knew I could not manage to juggle two jobs, especially when one required me to be physically capable, if I was hungover or feeling shitty so I was processing the idea in my head of taking some time off of it.  One thing that stopped me from fully committing though?  Socializing.  Booze for me has always been my social lubricant.  I am a socially awkward and anxiety ridden person and having a couple beers helps me feel less anxious.  So when the company Christmas party arrived on a Friday that year I did what I always do before a function like that and had two beers before heading out for the night.

Our plan that night was to go to the party for an hour or so.  We had planned to celebrate Christmas with my Pops and Step-Mom that weekend so we were going to take a cab to their place following the party.  I figured we would be going to bed shortly after getting there since we were having Christmas morning the next morning.  So I had my two tall cans at home, and then two (maybe three…probably three) pints at the bar (in that 1.5 hours) and then we got to my Dad’s to find them hanging out having drinks.  Not only that but they’d gotten champagne to celebrate my passing the PT exam.  Next thing I knew I woke up on the couch in the basement…not remembering going to bed….on what was to be our Christmas morning.

I made it through gifts but around 11 AM I was in the bathroom throwing up and spent the remainder of the day on the couch with the WORST hangover I’d ever had in my life.  Watching my sisters help with dinner while I laid there wanting to die – crying periodically like the hysterical drunk girl I’d always prided myself on not being.  And so, that day I committed to one year of no drinking.  Alcohol was not serving my new healthy life and if I didn’t have a “problem” then giving it up shouldn’t be a problem.

I made one caveat to my commitment in that I could have ONE drink if we were having a toast to celebrate something.  But otherwise I was going dry.  I even downloaded an app to track it and keep myself motivated. (If you are thinking about going dry for a bit I highly recommend the Try Dry App from AlcoholChangeUK. It’s free and easy to use and I found it very motivating to see my days add up!)

When the pandemic hit all I could think was “Of all the years to decide to be sober!”  But deep down I KNEW that it was the universe having my back…if I had been laid off, home alone all day, I would have been cracking a beer earlier and earlier each day.  It was my habit when just puttering around in the house (either that or snacking on things I would not normally snack on).  Also, I just really like beer.  I actually drink non-alcoholic beer now because truly beer is just sort of like pop for me, I love the flavour, and most of the time I’m just as happy with the alcohol free ones because that’s mostly what it is for me – a cold, refreshing beverage.  However, since they’re still just empty sugar calories, even those I try to keep to only drinking on weekends.

At the end of the 2020 I had a few drinks at Christmas and New Years and was able to easily moderate myself.  I wasn’t used to feeling tipsy anymore and didn’t want to go past a certain line.  But as I got more confident in my ability to manage myself I got a little more loose with it as the months have worn on.  There were months where I still had no drinks at all, and then in the last few suddenly having that one or two have become a lot more frequent.

That brings us to last Saturday at the cottage, when the perfect storm of a beautiful day, the drinks going down smooth, eating a bunch of food I would not normally eat and my sister being down to drink with me led to me spending the majority of Saturday night on the bathroom floor and pretty much all of Sunday in bed.

And it brought me back to – is this serving me?

Thus far I’ve only talked much here about issues I’ve thoroughly dealt with, or at the very least have processed with professionals.  So this is a little different, this is very much an open wound for me.  Something I’m only part-way through processing for myself.  Coming to terms with being sort of ashamed of a hangover but also recognizing that alcohol is, at the end of the day, a drug, and a destructive one at that has been something I’d never really thought I’d have to navigate…when you’re not a bad drinker, you never think you’ll decide to stop drinking.

Now I’m not running out to join a twelve step group or sign myself into a treatment facility.  I’m not despondent about choosing this path and I was actually quite content without alcohol last year. What I am doing is recognizing that alcohol was a coping mechanism for me that had a place at a point in my life but that point in my life is over.  Trying to keep it as a part of my life when there is no space for the relationship that I have with it, is not serving me.

As I was laying in bed this past weekend not wanting to speak to anyone and just wanting to sink into a black hole of shame, I wondered why I still felt that having a hangover after ingesting something that is literally poison causes me shame?  Why do I feel embarrassed that I can’t handle something our body was literally not meant to handle?  And I realized it’s because there’s a small part of me who still wants to be that “cool chick” or “one of the guys” who can drink with the best of them.

But you know what’s cooler than being able to do jager bombs at 2 AM after drinking all afternoon and night?  Being able to deadlift your body weight – and then MORE than your bodyweight.

You know what’s cooler than being able to go beer-for-beer with a dude twice your size?  Being able to kick that dude’s ass in the gym.

You know what’s cooler than not remembering how you got to bed the night before?  Being someone who can run half-marathons while your former self would be recovering from a hangover.

Not everyone will get why I don’t want to drink anymore.  Not everyone cares about the physical pursuits that I do, as much as I do, and not everyone has the relationship that I have with alcohol.  If you are someone who has one drink and is in no way tempted to have more then you won’t relate to this.  If you can drink a lot and still never have a hangover, then you might not relate to this.  If you aren’t anxious in social situations, then you wouldn’t understand needing a social lubricant.

But if you’ve ever drank to take the edge off.  If you’ve ever felt like you needed to drink to fit in.  If you ever wake up hungover and think the price you’re paying isn’t worth the experience you had the night before, then you might get it.

I am not here to tell you to never drink again.  I will tell you though that any notion of it being healthy is nonsense and if you drink to excess on the regular, well, you shouldn’t.  I wish I could say something else, but it’s just the facts. Beyond that if your wine once a week is worth it for you then absolutely enjoy it!!

Last year I read Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed and one quote that has lodged in my mind since I read it was this:  

“Since I got sober, I have never been fine again.  Not for a single moment.  I have been exhausted and terrified and angry.  I have been overwhelmed and underwhelmed and debilitatingly depressed and anxious.  I have been amazed and awed and delighted and overjoyed to bursting.  I have been reminded, constantly: this will pass, stay close.  I have been alive.”

I don’t want to be fine either.  I know that there will be uncomfortable moments when my default would be to want to reach for a beer (or whatever), but I’m tired of band-aiding myself through life and after a year without using booze as a crutch and being forced into my feelings, no matter how icky feeling they may have been, I realize that that is exactly what I had been doing, maybe not to the point of a major problem, but enough that it was negatively impacting the life I have worked so hard to build.  Instead of learning to navigate my discomfort, or set better boundaries, I just took the edge off and made it tolerable.  When I didn’t feel fun, I imbibed some fun into me.  I may not have ever NEEDED alcohol, but I certainly was using it to not live fully in my life.

For me, the choice I made to take a year off of drinking was truly one of the best choices I could have made for myself.  It allowed me to be fully present.  It allowed me to sit in discomfort and realize it wouldn’t kill me.  It allowed me to be alert when joyful things were happening.  It allowed me to not want to medicate myself when things are hard.  It allowed me to realize I don’t want to be fine.

And not being fine, actually feels really freakin great.