How Adjusting My Beverage Consumption Changed my Life

Talking Over Drinks

Once upon a time not too long ago there lived a woman with good intentions and very bad habits. She’d never been a bad person, but the habits that she’d developed as a way to self-soothe & to keep the pain in her mind at bay had contributed to her sometimes acting as if she were very unkind.

There were a host of bad habits that worked like a suit of rusty armor for her (that is to say, protecting her, albeit noisily and inefficiently, and constantly threatening tetanus — metaphorically, of course), but let’s concentrate on two of her habits that were linked: her consumption of mood-altering beverages, namely coffee and wine.

She’d started consuming both in her late teens and didn’t really come up for air until her late 40s. She made both coffee and wine daily habits for decades. And finally, when the bad habits became more troublesome than the pain & discomfort they were masking, she stopped them. And then she was able to start healing.

In case you haven’t guessed, that woman is me.

Claiming my Shadows

I’ve written about the difficulties of my youth (inherited mental illness, an abusive father, undiagnosed autism, etc). I was an artsy, sensitive, poetic teenager who hung out in coffee shops and dated boys in bands. I already felt disconnected from my body, so any physical discomfort that arose from imbibing coffee and alcohol was not a barrier to my enjoyment.

And so it went.

My life lurched along in a generally unpleasant way until 2020 when, around the time the pandemic began, I was touched by grace and made the decision to truly live rather than just survive for spite. My recovery has been challenging, but it’s yielded positive changes beyond belief. I would not have believed it possible that I could be as happy as I am today. That’s why it feels imperative to me to document all the changes I made; my mission is to inspire others to figure out what makes them happy (and what doesn’t) and to live accordingly, no matter what. If something I’ve figured out is helpful for others, then my struggle was worth it.

So, while adjusting my coffee and wine intake wasn’t the only life change I made, it was an essential one. Here’s the lowdown on my BAM (Beverage Adjustment Magic).

BAM! (Beverage Adjustment Magic)

HABIT 1: Coffee (daily)

Details: 2+ cups of brewed coffee daily with hazelnut creamer

ISSUES (Why I needed to change): Belly issues & jitters followed by a crash every day. But that was just what I realized was happening. After I stopped, I realized so much more had been going on.

WHY IT WAS DIFFICULT: I identified as a coffee drinker! I started when I was a teenager, going to coffee shops late at night with friends. My mother didn’t drink coffee, so it seemed a sort of way to set myself apart as my own kind of adult. Then I came to rely on it to wake up in the morning which, truth be told, I didn’t want to.

STEPS I TOOK: As part of the “great recovery” of 2020, I was determined to try whatever might be helpful, even though I’d never considered my coffee consumption to be a bad habit before. The miracle of that (very difficult) moment in my life was that I was cracked open. I’d been so near ending my life that I was willing to try anything to get better. Those cracks in my being let in so much light that everything was illuminated.

I decided to try a mushroom-based beverage as a replacement for coffee, maybe just a couple of days a week. What happened was rather astounding on a couple of levels.

First, I loved the taste so much more than I liked the taste of coffee that I switched entirely, and all at once. The fact that I enjoyed the taste and didn’t need to mask it meant that I also eliminated the artificial sweet gunk I was pouring into my coffee (and thus into my body). It was all a marvelous surprise.

RESULTS: Keep in mind that I was making a lot of positive changes around the same time I eliminated coffee, so it’s difficult to be sure what was causal vs. correlational. I can say that I feel so much better, in every way. I no longer suffer from bubbly guts — that gurgly, gassy, uncomfortable feeling I just accepted as my morning state of being. No more jitters followed by a crash that had me foggy most of the afternoon.

I’ve also learned since quitting coffee that it’s one of the most pesticide-treated crops in the world, so in addition to quitting the bean and the sweetener, I was kicking a degree of poison, as well.

Though I’ve no measure of this, I’m certain that inflammation throughout my body — and spirit — was greatly reduced, too. My joints felt better. My skin looked better. My mood was better.

In my extensive study & self-work over the last two years, I’ve also come to understand a lot more about the nervous system generally, and mine specifically. Mine tends toward dysregulation, meaning I’m quite sensitive to stimuli of all sorts and have a difficult time bringing myself back into a state of comfort. Coffee was not at all helpful with that.

HABIT 2: wine (daily)

Details: since I was in my late teens, I was, for the most part, a daily drinker.

ISSUES (Why I needed to change): I’ve always been an introvert, and except for a couple of years at the beginning of my drinking epoch, I was primarily just drinking by myself at home — it certainly wasn’t a social habit. It was my big old comfort blanket. But I was fat, I felt terrible, and my dependence was becoming a barrier to my enjoyment of life.

WHY IT WAS HARD: I identified even more as a wine drinker than I did as a coffee drinker. It was my biggest way to self-soothe, my most “reliable” buffer between me and the world.

STEPS I TOOK: First & foremost, I’m patient & understanding with myself. I’ve taken the time over the past two years to deeply get to know myself and my shadows. I have not, at this point, determined it necessary to utterly eliminate alcohol from my life, and I’ve found that I’m able to drink at a much-reduced rate than I used to.

Prior to my recovery efforts, I’d been drinking roughly a bottle of champagne (12% ABV) most days. I’m telling you this so you know the extent of my habit, and how great the change has been.

Not just the alcohol, but the sugar, as well, was problematic.

Just as I was endeavoring to cut back on alcohol, I was beginning to enjoy a daily glass of kombucha…it seemed natural to give hard kombucha a try. Much like the mushroom beverage as a replacement for coffee, hard kombucha made cutting back on my champagne habit much easier.

The carbonation I craved was still there, but the alcohol level was about half (around 5–7%, depending on the product). There was also no added sugar, so it wasn’t as taxing on my body.

I was quickly able to wrangle myself down to a couple of cans of hard kombucha a day, then to 4 days a week.

The big change came when I did “Dry January” for the first time in 2022. I was terrified to try it because I didn’t think I could do it, and the first week was hard. But by the time I got to the end of the month, I felt so powerful and clear. I didn’t have a drink until Valentine’s Day, and have had a much easier time regulating my drinking since.

Now I’m down to a total of 6 cans of hard kombucha over the weekend, and an occasional splurge on a special occasion.

RESULTS: Everything is better. I lost 20 pounds without doing much other than changing my drinking habits. My body feels so much better, and my head is clearer. I feel more powerful because I know that I don’t have to have a drink to be ok.

Making Changes For Your Well-Being is Magic

It’s difficult to say precisely what wonderful effect resulted from which change, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all part of what I’ve come to think of as my Soul-Lit (as opposed to a diet) — my regimen of limiting my intake — on all fronts — to things that light up my soul.

Though I maintain that one-size-fits-all is a lie, I do believe there are changes all of us can make that will help us live happier lives that are more in alignment with our values. I hope my experiences can help you.