Two Years Without A Drink

This week marks another milestone in my life. Two years ago I gave up alcohol. After a series of panic attacks, feeling a lack of purpose, and ultimately needing peace in my life I made the decision to give up alcohol completely. Today I’m sharing the why, what I had to do to fulfill this decision and how it improved every other area of my life. It was also the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than birth, harder that failure, harder than any job I’ve taken. Yet day by day I made it. Two years is 730 days, 1 million minutes and over 67 million seconds. Essentially I made the same decision over an over each day that went by to get to where I am today. Life still throws me curve balls, but it’s manageable now. Before it was not manageable. It was not enjoyable or peaceful - I was miserable. I want to preface sharing my story that I am not suggesting whether someone should drink or shouldn’t - that is a decision that has to be made on your own. I am suggesting though if you are struggling to find joy and purpose to take a long hard look at what you are doing daily and decide if you want to keep doing it.

In my twenties, I worked in corporate America in tech sales where it was common for every event to include alcohol. Corporate IT sales is an aggressiv,e high pressure industry. If you’ve ever seen the movie Boiler Room then you have a taste of the lifestyle it pushes. You are expected to work hard and play harder. You are bonused with events and activities where alcohol comes in large amounts. From box suites at sporting events to all inclusive vacations and conferences… the list goes on. Most of your coworkers will be drinking, most of your superiors will be drinking and so will your clients. I’d like to also mention a big portion of this group is male which makes keeping up nearly impossible for a 5 foot female like myself. I was lucky in the fact that many of my direct bosses encouraged us to refrain from drinking too much but the alcohol was still present every where you turned. I even worked at one company where it was kept in the fridge at the office.

During this time I also was impacted by something that without a doubt was pretty traumatic. I won’t go into detail but the event left me with undiagnosed PTSD and I struggled sleeping for a long period of time. Looking back on what happened I should have gone immediately and gotten counseling. I chose to power through it and ignore what happened. The after effects had a ripple in my life. I’d go to work, come home and take care of my daughter have a few glasses of wine to fall asleep and repeat. Little by little I was training my brain to depend on alcohol for rest. It was not a good way to cope. The event also put a massive rift in my marriage and our finances. It was by far one of the toughest periods of my life and I just kept powering through it. I held a job the entire time. I took my kid to activities the entire time. I got up early and went to bed late the entire time. I even had a blog and produced content through it. But little by little I was losing myself.

Some could argue that I’m not an alcoholic - that I fall into functioning drinker. It doesn’t matter to me anymore - alcoholic or not, I can tell you that with every single passing day that goes by without a drink I feel like myself. Throughout the course of my life I had periods where I was pregnant and didn’t have alcohol and then another round where I went 19 months without a drop. So it wasn’t that I became so dependent on it that I couldn’t physically function, but I can tell you I used it to cope through emotional pain and stress. When I was sad I tried to block life out and not feel it. When I felt hurt I would have wine to fall asleep and start life over the next day. But no amount of drinks will undo pain. If you have issues (which most of us do) you need need to sort out - turning to drinks only creates a numbing effect. The pain is still there and every day that goes by is a day the wound gets worse.

Two years ago I said this is it and I am done with numbing the pain. March 22, 2019 was the final day I had alcohol in my body. I tried a variety of things over the course of these past two years to make my life better. I changed my lifestyle completely. I no longer have any alcohol in my home and for a period of time I didn’t go to very many events where I knew it would be present. Giving up drinking is not just giving up a substance - you have to reconstruct your entire life. You have to be okay with telling those around you that you are choosing to abstain completely. One drink is too many and a thousand are never enough. So no, you can’t just have a glass and move on. Explaining that can be cumbersome at the beginning. Even awkward. Get a support system or a program. Programs give you the tools you’ll need to get through the first few months which are by far the hardest.

You see the brain is a giant copy machine. The more you do an activity the more it makes patterns in your brain. If you drink wine or beer every night for years when you take the substance away the brain is programmed to pour a glass. I used mocktails for a period of time to create a placebo effect. I still enjoy ordering virgin drinks when I go out to dinner. I also order dessert often. It will take about 90 days to get all eight parts of your brain that are responsible for sound decision making to make a sound decision again. Alcohol and many substances affect the amygdala which is the mid-center of the brain responsible for associating pleasure with an action. If you drink when you are stressed you are affecting this part of the brain. To undo that effect you will need a new lifestyle for a few months. Look to your people, places and things. You may have to drive a different way home. You may have to turn down events. You may have to find a new job. Whatever it takes - those 90 days for your brain to essentially heal are vital in making this new choice last.

Triggers - we all have heard this term but identifying triggers are key to making a change. I knew stress and lack of sleep was a trigger for me. I spent countless days exercising to burn off stress and make my body tired. Self-care became one of my biggest priorities. Baths each night, great skincare, eating healthy, hydrating and meditation. Many times people around me had other plans for what I should do and I had to be pretty stubborn with the word “no.” If I thought it would propel me to drink I removed myself from the situation. The friends and family that truly cared abstained around me. Those who felt like they were more important, drank around me. It became a demarcation in my life as to who would stay in my inner circle. I chose during this period to let those go who shared different values and not take it personal. I chose to show up more for those people who supported me during this time because they are who I can count on. That’s what made this the hardest thing I ever did. To not pick up a glass of wine was easy… but to reconstruct my entire life and get to the root of WHY I felt like I needed a drink to go to sleep… that was the hard part.

Day by day colors got brighter. I eventually began to laugh again (for a while nothing seemed funny). I went through and took responsibility for what I had said or done in my past as much as I could. I felt better. There were still hard moments but I got to a point where I no longer had a thought to drink to fix it. New thoughts like how am I going to solve this problem emerged. I eventually had to end a relationship that was extremely unsupportive and unhealthy. In fact, when I hit the one year mark and I didn’t receive a call about my sobriety until 11:15pm that night I knew that was it. It was never going to change and this person clearly wasn’t going to be the partner I needed to continue. We all have our own choices. We all have our own life purpose, but choosing to build a life with someone requires basic values and encouragement. That was non-existent. So that had to end. I wish him the best, and I haven’t looked back with regrets on moving my life forward alone.

The alone time during the pandemic was healing. I sorted through my inner weaknesses each day. Lots of tears were shed during the beginning period and I came to really know who I am and what I have to offer the world. I know what it’s like to feel inadequate, worn down, exhausted and without joy. I know what high stress and pressure can do to a person. I know what it’s like to walk alone and build your strength little by little everyday. I’m here to tell you that it can be done. I never in a million years thought I’d be where I am today given two years ago. This past Friday I ran four miles on a treadmill after a nine hour workday. I’m the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been. I’m at peace with a lot of what’s going on in the world and I feel compassion for others and gratitude to be able to walk another day here on Earth. It was truly the hardest thing I’ve ever done but propelled me to be able to take on new challenges, new possibilities and lead others to make their own lives better. If you are currently struggling with drinking I understand. Know that you too can make a change in your life. In fact, you can make 67 million one second decisions, too.