A Year Without Alcohol: An Accidental Experiment with Sobriety
I didn’t consciously set out to stop drinking. There were no New Year’s Resolutions, no proclamations, no explicit commitments to sobriety.
There was just a slow gurgling up of fatigue, nausea, and distaste that emerged as the 2023 Holiday Season came to an end. Not explicitly to the idea of alcohol, but to life in general.
It started by accident.
It was the day after Christmas and I had been managing a mostly terrible mood since Thanksgiving. Family obligations, financial stresses, waning client interest. It all came to a head on December 26th.
I didn’t want to drink that day. I wanted to stay home and rest and watch my three kids play with their Christmas presents. Play some board games. Try out the new video gaming console. But we have a tradition – a fairly new tradition that is a compromise in and of itself – that this year felt particularly like just another obligation to meet.
So, we all put on some nicer clothes, loaded into the car, and headed about an hour away to spend the day with my mom, little sister, brother-in-law, and nieces.
It’s a really nice tradition, born of remembrance and convenience. My Dad passed away a while back not long after Thanksgiving – his favorite holiday; and my older sister succumbed to cancer a few years later – on the day after Christmas. It made sense to gather as a family for a number of reasons, including convenience and remembrance.
But the ride over proved to be challenging. I hadn’t been feeling well, which in hindsight turns out to be that I was coming down with the nasty respiratory virus that was plaguing California. And that’s where my accidental journey into sobriety really starts.
As we emerged from the Santa Cruz Mountains on the final stretch to my Mom’s house, a single and seemingly inevitable question arises: “Are we stopping for beer?”
I didn’t want to drink. I wasn’t feeling well, as I said. But like many times before, I felt like I needed it. Alcohol helps me get through social events, and it genuinely helps me enjoy them more.
It’s worth pausing here for a second to clarify that I am not an alcoholic. I don’t drink every day, or every week, but it's rare for me to go a month without alcohol. And, like an unfortunately large number of other Americans, when I drink, I tend to do so to excess.
As we drove into town, I was certainly self-aware enough to know that as I answered the question of whether we were stopping to pick up beer, I was also at the same time answering the question of whether I would be binge drinking that same day.
We did stop. And, I had a fabulous time. My mom made an awesome dinner. My favorite uncle stopped by as a surprise (we enjoyed a few strong IPAs together). The kids and their cousins were playful and rambunctious. We all had another round of gifts to open. It was wonderful. I had a better time, was more social, and in a better mood than I would have been without drinking. That’s a fact.
The next day I wasn’t even particularly hung over. A bit foggy, for sure. But the kids still had a couple weeks of Christmas break ahead of them, my main client declared an extended break as well, and so we brewed an extra pot of coffee and took some soup out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. It was the relaxing day I needed. I felt at ease with the idea of not going back to work until after the New Year.
Then the virus symptoms hit. And I got taken down. The coughing was the worst. It was uncontrollable and intense for nearly a week. Accompanied by severe fatigue, it persisted for nearly three weeks.
New Year’s came and went. I spent 72 hours in bed by myself. Never really sleeping, but in a tortuous state due to the severe bouts of coughing.
As I rested and healed, and the fatigue subsided, so did the appeal of alcohol.
It’s a little hard to describe the subtlety of the whole thing. It wasn't a flash of insight, or the stereotypical declaration "I'll never touch that stuff again" during a particularly harsh hangover. Instead, like a thick fog slowly lifting, things just became a little clearer with each day that something about my relationship with alcohol was changing. It started to take on substance.
As New Year’s came and went, I found myself not romanticizing about a sober January, but instead pondering the thought of a year without alcohol.
I became curious and intrigued. What would 2024 be like if I didn’t drink at all? How would things be different?
In a somewhat mysterious way, the idea started to form into a reality. I started to share the idea, almost floating it out there to see if, I don't know, to see if I'd be talked out of it? But I got no resistance.
It started to take on weight that maybe I really might do this.
I don’t know if I’ll make it the full year. As the month comes to a close, it may turn out to be just a sober January.
But maybe not. I’m settling into new habits. I’m feeling the effects typical of abstinence – sleeping better, better mood, better focus.
And as each day passes, I become more and more curious: will 2024 really be a year without alcohol?
There was just a slow gurgling up of fatigue, nausea, and distaste that emerged as the 2023 Holiday Season came to an end. Not explicitly to the idea of alcohol, but to life in general.
It started by accident.
It was the day after Christmas and I had been managing a mostly terrible mood since Thanksgiving. Family obligations, financial stresses, waning client interest. It all came to a head on December 26th.
I didn’t want to drink that day. I wanted to stay home and rest and watch my three kids play with their Christmas presents. Play some board games. Try out the new video gaming console. But we have a tradition – a fairly new tradition that is a compromise in and of itself – that this year felt particularly like just another obligation to meet.
So, we all put on some nicer clothes, loaded into the car, and headed about an hour away to spend the day with my mom, little sister, brother-in-law, and nieces.
It’s a really nice tradition, born of remembrance and convenience. My Dad passed away a while back not long after Thanksgiving – his favorite holiday; and my older sister succumbed to cancer a few years later – on the day after Christmas. It made sense to gather as a family for a number of reasons, including convenience and remembrance.
But the ride over proved to be challenging. I hadn’t been feeling well, which in hindsight turns out to be that I was coming down with the nasty respiratory virus that was plaguing California. And that’s where my accidental journey into sobriety really starts.
As we emerged from the Santa Cruz Mountains on the final stretch to my Mom’s house, a single and seemingly inevitable question arises: “Are we stopping for beer?”
I didn’t want to drink. I wasn’t feeling well, as I said. But like many times before, I felt like I needed it. Alcohol helps me get through social events, and it genuinely helps me enjoy them more.
It’s worth pausing here for a second to clarify that I am not an alcoholic. I don’t drink every day, or every week, but it's rare for me to go a month without alcohol. And, like an unfortunately large number of other Americans, when I drink, I tend to do so to excess.
As we drove into town, I was certainly self-aware enough to know that as I answered the question of whether we were stopping to pick up beer, I was also at the same time answering the question of whether I would be binge drinking that same day.
We did stop. And, I had a fabulous time. My mom made an awesome dinner. My favorite uncle stopped by as a surprise (we enjoyed a few strong IPAs together). The kids and their cousins were playful and rambunctious. We all had another round of gifts to open. It was wonderful. I had a better time, was more social, and in a better mood than I would have been without drinking. That’s a fact.
The next day I wasn’t even particularly hung over. A bit foggy, for sure. But the kids still had a couple weeks of Christmas break ahead of them, my main client declared an extended break as well, and so we brewed an extra pot of coffee and took some soup out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. It was the relaxing day I needed. I felt at ease with the idea of not going back to work until after the New Year.
Then the virus symptoms hit. And I got taken down. The coughing was the worst. It was uncontrollable and intense for nearly a week. Accompanied by severe fatigue, it persisted for nearly three weeks.
New Year’s came and went. I spent 72 hours in bed by myself. Never really sleeping, but in a tortuous state due to the severe bouts of coughing.
As I rested and healed, and the fatigue subsided, so did the appeal of alcohol.
It’s a little hard to describe the subtlety of the whole thing. It wasn't a flash of insight, or the stereotypical declaration "I'll never touch that stuff again" during a particularly harsh hangover. Instead, like a thick fog slowly lifting, things just became a little clearer with each day that something about my relationship with alcohol was changing. It started to take on substance.
As New Year’s came and went, I found myself not romanticizing about a sober January, but instead pondering the thought of a year without alcohol.
I became curious and intrigued. What would 2024 be like if I didn’t drink at all? How would things be different?
In a somewhat mysterious way, the idea started to form into a reality. I started to share the idea, almost floating it out there to see if, I don't know, to see if I'd be talked out of it? But I got no resistance.
It started to take on weight that maybe I really might do this.
I don’t know if I’ll make it the full year. As the month comes to a close, it may turn out to be just a sober January.
But maybe not. I’m settling into new habits. I’m feeling the effects typical of abstinence – sleeping better, better mood, better focus.
And as each day passes, I become more and more curious: will 2024 really be a year without alcohol?
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