Sobriety as self care
(I’m drinking a mocktail)
The question isn’t whether you have a drinking problem. The question is — does drinking cause you problems?
What happens when you are not an alcoholic, but you might want to stop drinking anyway? Is that even a thing you’re allowed to do? Aren’t people going to think that is strange? Like, if you’d not addicted to alcohol, shouldn’t you be able to have a drink or two and have it not be a big deal? Aren’t alcoholics the only ones who can be sober? Can you choose to stop drinking purely as a form of taking care of your mental health?
I had a lot of alcohol questions when I decided to stop drinking for a year.
I’ve seen addiction close up and I know what that is. It’s horrible and painful and to anyone who is dealing with addiction to anything — I commend your struggle to try to get out from under the weight of that. My family gathered together and saw my grandmother off to the airport when she went to rehab. She came home and I watched her change her life and live sober. We had an amazing relationship and I always admired the way she set those boundaries. So I know addiction and I know that I’m not addicted to alcohol; the only thing I’ve ever been addicted to is perfectionism.
I grew up on Hollywood film sets. Alcohol and drugs were everywhere. It was really easy to get any of that stuff, at any age, and maybe that’s why it was never all that interesting to me. It wasn’t elusive and exotic. It was practically out next to the pretzels on the craft services table.
I saw many of my child actor cohorts dive head first into that lifestyle and it just looked so stereotypical. It wasn’t for me. I stayed with my in-bed-at-9 PM-with-a-book kind of life. (Pretty easy for an introvert with social anxiety.) I don’t even remember my first alcoholic beverage because it was that uneventful, it would have been at some point in my early 20s. The only thing I could stand the taste of was apple martinis, so even I was embarrassed whenever I ordered a drink.
I eventually grew to tolerate the taste of wine because it felt like something that sophisticated adults did. I went to a Scotch tasting and learned to appreciate that toasty warm feeling. So through my 30s I would have maybe two or three drinks a week. Because that’s what sophisticated adults do. Or so I was told.
To be clear, alcohol makes me feel like shit. Even one drink hits me hard and fast. I don’t really get “fun drunk” - I get dizzy and nauseated and it triggers my depression so I cry a lot, and I don’t sleep. If I have two drinks I barely sleep for three days. In case you’re new here and haven’t heard, I am a highly sensitive, overly empathic, super sensitive, anxiety-prone person. Alcohol turns all those dials up to eleven, and turns me into an incompetent, sobbing slug who can’t accomplish anything. The next day I obsess over whatever stupid thing I said or did — which I already do because I have anxiety, so it’s just four billion times worse.
So, why would I voluntarily do that to myself?
Our culture tells us that we should drink because people who drink are fun. We should drink when we’ve had a bad day. We should drink when we’ve had a great day. We should drink to relax. We should drink to get brave. We should drink to connect with others. We should drink to treat ourselves.
But for me, alcohol doesn’t do any of that. Self care doesn’t look like nausea, dizziness, and self-loathing. I’m not brave when I’m depressed. I’m not fun when I’m crying.
The last drink I had was when I met a dear friend of mine in Chicago for the weekend. She lives on the west coast and I’m on the east coast, so we don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like. We had a fantastic weekend, and on our last night we went out to see Second City. They have a two drink minimum. I’m super cheap, so I wan’t going to waste that. I got two cocktails.
I spent the evening holding on to my chair because my vertigo was so bad and I was convinced I was going to fall on the floor. I think maybe I laughed at the improv, but honestly I don’t remember anything from the show. I think maybe there was someone in a dinosaur costume? When we got in an Uber to go home, I thought I might puke. I laid awake most of the night, only falling asleep to have horrific nightmares about headless copses. Then, the next morning, I felt miserable and exhausted so I just kind of laid around our room until we had to go to the airport at noon. So, I wasted a solid 25% our weekend together. We could have been at brunch or taking silly photos in front of that giant bean sculpture or doing a million other things that didn’t involve lying on a floor.
That was the day I realized I didn’t want to have to drink anymore. (Note the phrasing - who was MAKING me drink?? I’m an adult damn woman.) But the thought of never drinking again felt scary, too. No celebratory champaign toast on my birthday? No winery tasting flight? None of that EVER? So I thought, maybe just for a year. I won’t drink for 365 days.
I really wasn’t sure I could do it.
I started following some #SoberCurious people on instagram, and I saw this meme that said - the question isn’t whether you have a drinking problem. The question is does drinking cause you problems?
I’m going to write that again.
The question isn’t whether you have a drinking problem. The question is does drinking cause you problems?
That was just it. Drinking absolutely causes me problems. It just does. So why would I chose something that causes me pain?
I read the book This Naked Mind by Annie Grace, and that changed everything about how I looked at alcohol. It really got into the science of what ethanol does to your body. It’s a neurotoxic, addictive, carcinogenic substance. And we all know that. And we all block out the science - and say yeah yeah whatever I but I only live once and HEY DRINKING IS FUN!
And if that’s where you’re at, that’s fine. But it wasn’t working for me at all.
I started to notice that the messages I got about how I needed to drink to be fun and joyful and interesting were such bullshit! I was fun and joyful and interesting without alcohol.
This was just classic, dumbass peer pressure. And in the age of COVID, we’re all getting the message that we should be drinking our asses off right now, to manage our stress. And I’m not sure that’s cool.
The messages that target women specifically are really shocking when you start to look at them from a critical perspective. The idea that girl’s nights need to center around drinking, that mommies need their juice, it’s really detrimental to a lot of us, who find that alcohol wreaks havoc on our mental health. And it’s important to not blow off the physical effects. There is all kind of research now about how alcohol damages cells and influences hormone levels and does tissue damage and all that can lead to big scary cancer stuff. But it seems like everyone is doing it and is just fine so it should be okay for us, and that is not at all true.
As the wonderful Holly Whitaker says, “it’s destruction, marketed as liberation.”
I’m not going to lie and tell you it was easy. I’ve had to deal with people and their “good natured” teasing that I’m too pure and need to have a vice and a little fun. I’ve had people order tequila shots for me after I ordered a club soda at a bar, and tell me it’s rude of me to not drink it since they paid.
I’ve been heartbroken and disappointed and sad and worried as I read the news, feeling panicked by everything from reproductive rights to racial injustice to the destruction of the planet, and all of those things made me want to drink. I want to escape my own brain. I want to stop with all my goddamned FEELINGS.
It’s no wonder that we are desperate to find something to numb those feelings, to take the edge off. But here is what I have learned in these past two years of being sober.
When you numb those feelings, you don’t escape them. They just wait around the corner and jump you when you are not paying attention.
Here’s the other thing — when you consistently numb the unpleasant feelings, you start to notice that everything gets numb. The joy, the gratitude, the awe, the inner peace…it all gets dimmed. You can’t check out selectively.
So I feel every single feeling I have now and I learn how to ride that wave. Because more than anything in my life, I want to be awake. I want to be there for the moments in my life, even the moments that hurt. I don’t want to miss anything because I think I can’t handle it.
I can remember that I am strong enough to be present without looking away, without numbing out, without needing a glass of wine to remove me from the experience.
I know some people like to brag about how much alcohol they can handle. That doesn’t impress me. I am impressed with someone can walk through the discomfort of being alive without trying to pretend it’s not there.
So what happened when my one year of sobriety was up? I couldn’t honestly think of a reason to start drinking again. Something happened in my 40s, and I no longer have the desire to mess around with shit that doesn’t serve me well. I’m done with people and places and things that are not helping me be the best version of myself.
I can just show up as sober me, and that is enough. I don’t need someone to tell me I need to be changed to be cool or fun or relaxed. Because time is limited y’all. This life thing only ends one way, and I want to show up fully for all of it while I can.
So I’m not telling you to stop drinking. I’m just giving you permission to stop if it’s causing you problems. I’m just saying if you’re sober curious, you’re not alone.
For me, I no longer feel like “I don’t get to drink” — it’s “I don’t have to drink.”
And I’m really grateful for that.
I will say, there are some really good alcohol-free drinks out there from Curious Elixirs to Lagunitas Non-alcoholic IPA. There are a ton of wonderful options for feeling like you just want to have something festive to sip, that’s not another La Croix. For at-home mixing, check out Zero Proof Drinks and More: 100 Recipes for Mocktails and Low-Alcohol Cocktails by Maureen Petrosky.
Do you have a favorite AF drink? Leave it in the comments!
