I Stopped Drinking During the Pandemic

How to resist the allure of being a social drunk

Prior to the pandemic, I ran a bar. I was there all of the time. Literally. My typical day spanned 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Some nights (or mornings) I didn’t get home until just before or after sunrise. We had lots of fun after hours.

I was slightly buzzed, sometimes drunk, and, more often than not, high on edibles all of the time. I lived in an altered state. But I had a killer social life.

Then, in mid-March, Los Angeles instituted its stay-at-home order and shut down bars and restaurants. My life changed. I returned to full-time writing. I got in the best shape of my life, adopted a strict diet, and quit drinking.

I’m at peace with my decision, however it’s difficult to resist the allure of being a social drunk. You gotta win the tug of war between having an “easy” social life and putting in the work to have a genuine and truly fulfilling one.

You’re Slowly Killing Yourself When You Drink Excessively

We know this. However, we often ignore the impacts of alcohol on our body because many of them are invisible.

For example, when I was drinking all the time, eating poorly, and not sleeping, clumps of my hair fell out each day in the shower. I chalked it up to getting older. But, by April, my hair stopped falling out. And, thank goodness, because it’s one of the few things I’ve got going for me.

It’s so important to us to be social and, more so, socially accepted. When we drink and party, we neglect our physical selves in favor of our social selves. And it’s sort of understandable. Without the bar at the center of my universe, I’m rebuilding my social life from the ground up. I can’t go back to my old life because in that life it’s virtually impossible to escape alcohol.

When Your Social Life Revolves Around Booze, You’re Never Your True Self

You don’t have to work in a bar 24/7 for alcohol to be the focal point of your social life. For many of us, social activity simply doesn’t happen without alcohol functioning as a primary component. We get together with friends. We immediately start drinking. Even now in the era of park hangs. Hard seltzer cans keep most blankets from blowing in the wind.

Alcohol acts as a social lubricant. Inhibitions drop and you present yourself in ways you wouldn’t without beer (or White Claw) running through your veins.

When I reflect on my time as a social drunk, I ask myself if the people around me actually liked me. If they wanted to be around me. If they wanted to be with me. Or was it just the guy who ran the cool cocktail bar they wanted to be around. Was it only the slightly buzzed or flat out drunk version of Rocco behind the bar they were attracted to?

I met my girlfriend of 15 months in the bar. When she dumped me, I retreated to the same bar for comfort. I met two of the subsequent three women I slept with at that bar. The other seemed equally enamored and inspired by my decision to leave financial writing for the seemingly carefree calling of bar life. Would any of these women have wanted to be near me, let alone with me, if I wasn’t attached to the bar and appropriately lubricated by alcohol and THC?

I don’t know, but I want to find out.

I saw it firsthand. Countless numbers of people rarely, if ever, present their true social selves to the world. In social situations, they use alcohol as the great equalizer. It mediates and, ultimately, skews every social interaction they have. When it works — as it did for me — it’s tough to kick the habit.

You Shouldn’t Be Embarrassed to Tell People You’re Not Drinking

The social pull of alcohol is strong. When I decided to stop drinking, I freaked out. As I rolled through a dating app, it seemed most every profile I swiped on mentioned drinking. How would I have a social life if I don’t want to drink much, or at all, anymore?

I finally convinced myself to get over the embarrassment. I said it straight up in my dating profile:

I don’t miss going to restaurants and bars. I don’t drink much either.

My therapist told me something shortly after my breakup that resonated. She said I would have a relationship again. And she insisted I make a list of what I want in an eventual partner. She thought I was too concerned with whether or not a date or prospective mate would like me. Instead, I had to set a standard of what I want and need. You’re not looking for somebody perfect, but you should definitely have boxes you check, some of which will be non-negotiable, she said.

When I wrestled with how to present the decision to eliminate alcohol from the foundation of my social life, I went back to my therapist’s advice. You can’t settle. If you refuse to hold firm on the things that made your life better — in areas where you have improved — you’re making a deadly compromise. You’re going to get into a relationship just to be in one, not because it’s the right one. And it’s not the right one, if you’re not aligned with the other person on fundamental beliefs with regards to how to be social. We don’t talk about all of the things that matter most at the beginning of a relationship — sex, money, and, the less frequently mentioned, exactly how do you like to be social.

I’m not going to say I don’t miss bar life. Part of me does. It’s fun, easy, and an endless source of social stimulation and experience. But it’s also illusory. And I don’t have time for nostalgia. I’ve things I want to accomplish today.

Drinking excessively leaves you without a sense of who you really are. If you make the choice to critically consider the role alcohol plays in your social life, you set a path to properly situate it going forward. You might reject it entirely. You might simply cut back or reconsider context. There’s nothing wrong with loving wine, beer, or bourbon. But it’s gotta be the wine, beer, or bourbon you truly love, not the way it helps you artificially present yourself to the world and the people you long to be close to.