How I Stopped Drinking Alcohol for a Year

And what I learned…

Initially, I thought of starting this off with a shocking statistic about the number of people dying due to alcohol related incidents every year or the number of people who rely on alcohol on a daily basis, just to get by. But I won’t. We may not have all the facts, but I am sure most of us are aware that alcohol use and abuse continue to be a real issue in our society, whether we want to admit it or not. Instead I want to focus on the positives. I want to talk about the good things that come from staying dry, particularly over time.

Unfortunately, as a society, we tend to focus on the negatives assuming it’s going to motivate us to “give up” drinking or smoking or whatever else it may be. See, that is part of the problem. We always talk about giving something up — focusing on what we lose, rather than what we gain. Which just sets us up to fail from the very beginning. In addition, we are focused on the damage that substances inflict on our bodies and mind— just look at the graphical photos on a pack of cigarettes — rather than the freedom we gain and all the things we instead can achieve. The truth is, for most people this scaremongering just doesn’t work. Otherwise we obviously wouldn’t have these issues. So no, I don’t like the words “giving up” when it comes to making changes. Instead, I prefer to think of it as being curious, growing, discovering new opportunities or bringing myself to life. Something with a positive ring to it. It sounds better and it just takes away that negative load that “giving up” something brings with it.

Like many people, alcohol has been a huge part of my life since my early teens due in part to the way our society is shaped. As a result, I have experienced some struggles in my life that I potentially could have avoided. But rather than dwell on past mistakes and missed opportunities, I choose to focus on the positive outcomes of the struggles I’ve faced. Instead of dabbling in the comfort of being a victim of life and circumstances, while blaming society for everything that goes wrong, I choose to take responsibility for my own life and take action to change it. I don’t settle with being “just fine”. When something isn’t working for me, I take steps to change it. However hard it is.

One of those things was changing my relationship with alcohol, as I realised it served me no purpose. Now, I know that there is no single clear path to sobriety or drinking less. Neither am I an expert in the field. However, I can share my strategies for how I faced the challenge, in the hope that it will inspire someone to do the same.

(Disclaimer: the purpose if this post is to share my personal experience. It is not intended to be used to diagnose or treat addiction. If you need help, consult with a professional).

Step one — acceptance and understanding

As with anything, you have to know there is an issue before you can take steps to change it — and then own up to it. The latter part is the hardest. It’s one thing to know something isn’t right for you, it’s another entirely to accept you are continuing to make the same mistakes. But until you do, you will most likely stay stuck. Accepting the situation for what it is, allows you to clearly see how it is affecting your life. But that doesn’t necessarily tell you what do you do about it…

Step two — change the focus

Focusing on the problem will only make it bigger. You have to focus on what you want instead. So get very clear on what that is, but be careful. There is a big difference between longing for something and working towards what you want. When my focus was to “drink less alcohol”, I wound up drinking more. Instead, focusing on what I wanted to achieve, made it much easier to stay dry. For me, that was improving my running pace and completing a Marathon. Whatever it is for you, keep it at the forefront of your mind, and take action.

Step three — strategize

But what action? Knowing what you want doesn’t equal knowing how to get there. I knew getting faster and completing a Marathon would require lots of training — that’s “easy”. I knew drinking alcohol (at least the level I was drinking at) hindered my performance, so I had to stop it — not that easy. My entire social life revolved around alcohol. Everyone around me — family, friends, colleagues — drink. I had to find strategies and plan how to deal with social situations where alcohol would be involved. I came up with quite a few. Two of which had the biggest impact: 1 — make it public and 2 — accountability.

Step four — implementation

On January 31st 2019, I began implementing my strategies by publicly announcing my intentions on social media. It went like this (back then I used the term “quit drinking” because I didn’t know better):

“From tomorrow February 1st 2019, I will quit drinking for a minimum of 1 year. I have many reasons for doing this and to make sure I stick to the plan, I will use Instagram for accountability. I will post daily to remind myself of the reasons why, the benefits, alternatives, thoughts and status updates.

I’m excited about this challenge and know that it may be difficult in the beginning so, for the month of February, I will focus on the reasons why I want to do this...”

A public announcement helped with two things. 1 — I avoided having to “explain” why I wasn’t drinking anymore, every time I was meeting up with friends and family, and 2 — with everyone in the know, I would have no excuse to drink in a moment of weakness when going out, as that would “look bad” on my part.

In addition, with my entire network consisting of regular drinkers, I didn’t want to rely on them for accountability — another reason for turning to social media. Now, I am not a big fan of most things related to social media however, for this particular purpose, it was a saving grace. As you can see, I had decided that I would do a daily post to remind myself why I was doing this, which was also a way of keeping it at the forefront of my mind.

These two strategies made it so much easier to say no, consistently. Of course, I employed many other strategies which I may share in a future post however, as I mentioned in the beginning, the purpose of this post is to highlight the many benefits that can come from not drinking.

Quality of sleep

One of the first things I noticed was how quickly my sleeping patterns improved. Which in turn, completely changed the quality of my sleep. I am sure many of you have felt the difference in quality of sleep when drinking vs. not drinking. But I wonder whether many people realise how much better it gets over time. It is exponential. Within a week I stopped waking up in the middle of the night, within a month I was able to fall asleep quickly (which used to take me at least a half hour) and after just a couple more months I would consistently wake up energised and excited to get started with my day. And it didn’t stop there!

Sustained energy levels

I was ecstatic that I was waking up energised for the first time in years. What was even more profound was the ability to sustain that energy throughout the day and every day. That midday slump became a thing of the past, which meant increased productivity.

Focus

Better quality sleep means more restorative sleep, i.e. deep sleep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement). The REM stage of sleep is responsible for memory formation and storage as well as emotional processing, this is when you are more likely to have vivid dreams as the brain is active. It goes without saying that the more “processing” you can get done in your sleep, the better you can focus in a waken state. This sounds great in theory, but wait till you actually experience it and feel the clarity of mind that it brings. You feel like you can do anything!

Performance & Recovery

The deep sleep stage then is important for physical restoration and is also when the immune system is strengthened and renewed. The body releases hormones for healing and growth. Super important for an athlete recovering from intense training sessions. I was running three to four times per week plus two gym sessions, so recovery was everything.

Furthermore, as my recovery was so good it had a huge impact on my performance. My average running pace continued to increase as did my rate of improvement inside the gym. I got through a four month training program and a full marathon without a single injury and I was back in the gym two days after my race. Result!

Weight loss

Obviously, all that running and exercise resulted in a little bit of weight loss. But I’m sure we all know that alcohol equals extra calories and the more you drink … well you get the picture. I used to drink a lot so there is no doubt cutting out all those extra calories made a big impact.

Cleaner skin

Alcohol is a toxin and toxins in the body cause inflammation which is noticeable in the skin, particularly the face. In addition, alcohol causes dehydration making wrinkles and pores more visible and you lose that healthy glow.

When you haven’t seen that healthy glow in the mirror in a long time, it’s really quite profound how it makes you feel. It was about three to four months in when I really noticed it and boy did it make me feel good about myself. When I was in my mid twenties, I was told I looked well over thirty. At thirty-five that completely changed.

Reduced anxiety

People often use alcohol to relieve anxiety, particularly social anxiety, and it usually works in the moment. The irony is it makes the anxiety worse when the alcohol starts to wear off. For me, this was groundbreaking. I had battled anxiety for a long time, and it was still lingering in the background but after a few months without drinking, I became a lot less fearful. And that gave me a sense of freedom that I never want to let go of.

Money

As I was going over my reasons for not drinking, I started adding up how much money I spent on alcohol on average — I was shocked! Here I was worrying about all the money I was spending on my gym membership, healthy foods, etc. only to learn I was actually spending more on alcohol. I couldn’t believe it and if I needed any more convincing to stop drinking that was definitely it!

Now, you will likely experience many more benefits if you decide to give sobriety a go. These were just some of the most important ones for me that had the biggest impact. Sober curiosity is a thing, and I hope many more people will join the movement. Here’s to your health!