How I Dared Myself To Quit Drinking

In a world full of soggy drunks, sobriety feels pretty badass.

I’ll tell you how I quit drinking. It’s quite simple in fact. I did it on a dare. A dare with myself.

For nearly twenty years I was the quintessential “functioning” alcoholic. I drank in moderation — or so I told myself. I was never a blackout drunk — or so I told myself. In fact I distinctly remember three occasions where I drank to the point of physical collapse, which is probably rather a lot for somebody who was “not a blackout drunk”. I also frequently told others (and myself) that I was a “social drinker” — even as I was proceeding to uncork a bottle of wine on my own. I guess the dogs were home. Does that count?

In my last year of being a drinker, however, I developed a new “addiction” of sorts: online self-diagnosis sites for alcoholism. I became obsessed with them. At last I had found a completely private arena for foisting honesty on myself, something that, as an alcoholic, I was not accustomed to. I took test after test after test, with each one revealing that I was indeed a problem drinker. In a world full of tests that reveal wildly inconsistent findings, this was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Of course, when I started doing these tests I was doing so in the hopes that they would tell me I didn’t have a drinking problem. I figured at least ONE of them out there would give me a free pass — like that one slot machine that delivers the goods. Alas, not a single test gave me the answer I was looking for. But in the midst of this new obsession, something shifted in my head. The hopefulness that the test would turn out negative gradually receded and what took its place was a genuine desire to quit drinking. After however many test results telling me I was an alcoholic, I had begun the process of owning that reality — and re-imaging a different version of myself.

Eventually it practically got to the point where I looked forward to the alcoholism verdict. It became a challenge, that external voice telling you to do something that you’re afraid to do but that you deep down still want to do, like jump out of an airplane or take up butoh or body suspension. I was still technically a drinker, but now I felt like an atheist priest going through the motions. My heart wasn’t really in it anymore.

But the fear of what comes after still remained. Ask any recovered addict what the hardest thing about getting clean was, and most will rank at or near the top of the fear of ostracism from their “community” of fellow addicts, as well as the unwanted attention that comes with the open frankness about their past and present. This was certainly the case for me. I come from a family that loves its tipples. Up until my quit, my adult friendships for the most part — whether by intent or by happenstance — had tended to revolve around booze. Declaring myself a non-drinker felt like a dangerously rebellious act that ran counter to my entire previous identity. It felt scary.

At the same time, though, it also felt kind of badass. Risqué even.

The badassness of sobriety was the characteristic I latched onto as I prepared for my quit. I immersed myself in straight edge punk music and sought solace in the badassness of teetotalers like Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, Bif Naked, and others. I later discovered that one of my greatest literary heroes, Haruki Murakami, had quit booze cold turkey and taken up long-distance running — a model I would follow myself. Increasingly, sobriety not only seemed like a healthy way to exist, but also a token act of rebellion. All around me were people and advertising and social pressure goading me to drink. And for the first time in my adult life, I was coming to the realization that I had the power to say no to it.

And so it happened. After a night of heavy solo drinking on September 3, 2015, the full reality of my addiction — and its complete incongruity with my idealized vision of myself — was forced into sharp relief. I quit that night. It started with a year of sobriety, followed by a couple of months of backslide, which in turn was followed by my current permanent quit.

It has now been nearly a year and half since I touched the bottle. And while there are moments where I miss, I still feel much more, well, badass this way. Maybe that’s a shallow, self-indulgent way to stay sober, but it seems to be doing the trick. I feel considerably better about myself as a sober person than I ever did as a drunk. My writing output has been far steadier, and of a better quality. My social life, while shaky for a time, is starting to improve. Life has sharper contours than ever before. It’s pretty much all better this way.

The lesson of my sobriety saga? When in doubt, try reverse psychology. I don’t think I ever would have quit had I cast it in the normal fashion, of it being the healthy, sensible thing to do. I had to turn it into a game of chicken with myself, along the lines of “Who do YOU think you are? You think you’re some sort of badass straight edger? YOU’LL never quit, you pretentious twerp! I bet you can’t do it, loser!” I’ve always been good at negative self-talk, so this sort of self-badgering was second-nature to me. Finally, an opportunity to use that “talent” for good.

Also, if you want to get sober, do alcoholism self-diagnosis tests. Do them often. Daily even! Try this one. Or this one. Or this self-assessment hub. Or just Google “Am I an alcoholic?” and see what comes up. Chances are if you’re Googling these words, you deep down already know the answer to the question. But asking the question is the first step in admitting to yourself that you have a problem. Like interrogating a suspected terrorist, persistence eventually pays off and you’ll drive the truth out of yourself.

Getting sober can be a lonely ordeal, which it why it’s best to turn it into a cinematic drama wherein you get to play all the roles yourself. You get to be your own interrogator, your own prosecutor, your own defence attorney, and the badass hero at the centre of it all who emerges bloodied but triumphant à la Raging Bull. Yes, it’s important to involve other people in your life in the process as a means of fostering external accountability, but it is first and foremost an internal battle, a war for your own heart and mind.

Sobriety is NOT the same as abstinence. Abstinence is a state of not-doing. Sobriety is a way of existing in the world, and a mode of being that expresses a certain type of passion — a passion for being real and grounded. When you’re sober, water tastes better. Exercise feels better. Sleep feels better. Sex is night-and-day different. Anger and grief are more profound, as are ecstasy and eudaimonia. Sobriety is a pair of glasses that brings every conscious experience into exquisitely sharp focus — for better and for worse. For me it’s the only way I can now ever imagine wanting to be.

I quit drinking on a dare. A dare to be better, more honest, more real. It’s still a work in progress, but so far it’s been more than worth the jump out the airplane door into the howling winds of the deep beyond. It’s beautiful out here.

Now it’s my turn. I dare you! ;-)