On Quitting the Drink

I haven’t read it, but there is a book named “Alcohol Lied to Me.” I love the title because it holds true. The stuff is just a lie.

I’ve been meaning to blog a piece about alcohol, but I’m a newbie to sobriety and I don’t feel seasoned enough to give advice or proclaim victory. What I do know is that my life and every experience I have has changed, and I have no desire to feel the way I used to.

Tonight I’m sailing with my husband, Daren. Around 4 p.m., we both started getting hungry. Daren suggested some appetizers. He went down below and a few minutes later appeared with a gorgeous spread of cheeses, olives, crackers, pâté, hummus, and roasted bell peppers.

I cracked open a Diet Coke and took a bite of the Manchego cheese. Oh my goodness—it was so good! It’s the same brand we often purchase, but depending on the temperature and how it’s sliced, it always tastes somewhat different. Tonight it was slightly nutty and had a melt-in-your-mouth consistency. I took a sip of my soda and sampled the Gruyère.

It’s been a while since I’ve marveled at the fact that I experience eating in a totally different way since I’ve quit drinking. It’s been 6 months and 2 weeks since my last sip of alcohol, and shocking to what my old self 6½ months ago would have believed, I miss absolutely nothing about it.

I would not have even wanted appetizers if we didn’t have wine on board. Not that there was a chance—akin to the possibility of an ice cube surviving in hell—that I wouldn’t have ensured there was at least a month’s supply for a small army on board before leaving the dock.

For a long few years before I quit, there was hardly a food I wouldn’t want without wine or beer. White wine, particularly, was my vice. Chilled white wine. It made everything taste better. It soothed my nerves. It made me relaxed. It made me funnier. I didn’t have a problem. I didn’t do anything dangerous. I just really, really loved wine and beer. I could quit anytime I wanted to. I often did. I went back because I missed the taste. My food wasn’t the same without it. I didn’t relax the same. I could quit. I could…

Right?

Haha. So wrong. So, so very wrong.

I quit at least every two months or so and actually didn’t drink for a few days. But then there was a celebration, a party, a fun dinner with friends, a romantic dinner with my husband, a stressful day. Trump said something offensive. I had a good show to kick back with. My soap opera was on. It was Tuesday.

There was always a reason. I was always wound up. I “quit” for a few days every few months, but honestly, I tried to quit every day. Every single night I went to bed feeling like crap and wishing I hadn’t drunk. Every morning I woke up feeling determined to quit. I’d meditate on it. I’d write love notes to my later-day self about how good I feel and why it’s a bad idea. By 9 a.m. each day, I would decide that “today” would be my last day and begin planning when to start drinking for the day—when to chill the wine and what I would eat with it. It was downhill from there.

It was the same sad story every day.

By mid-afternoon, I wrestled with why I even felt guilty. I rationalized that every single person around me drank daily too. I convinced myself I was normal and that craving alcohol was just a normal part of life. I loved it. But I hated it.

Six months after my last gulp, I am 100% aware of how unbelievably wrong I was—wrong about every last “good” or “normal” thing I attributed to alcohol.

Like the book title states, “Alcohol Lied to Me.” Food is so much better without it. I don’t even know if I had taste buds with it. I now have the ability to realize I’m full and stop eating. When I drank, I thought I was enjoying food and wanted more because it was so good. I believed that lie too. I’ve already passed the honeymoon phase of realizing this. Tonight, I just happened to remember and feel a bit amazed by how duped I was.

I am now way more relaxed. Somehow, even stressful events don’t bother me like they used to. Food is better. Nothing in my life has changed. I have the same life with the same good, bad, and ugly parts. I just feel differently about them and can embrace whatever it is.

I now experience what I knew before but never practiced—that all those cliché sayings like “this too shall pass” or the Serenity Prayer are actually true. It all passes, like the weather in New England. If you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes. If you do, enjoy it—but be prepared for it to change without warning.

I am in no way cuter, smarter, funnier, braver, or more honest when drinking. I might think I am. But I slur my words, think hurtful things are funny, and lose the filter of “Is it true, kind, necessary?” in the name of being honest. If my mood isn’t good, I can be a bitch. I make really stupid decisions, and I often regret things I would have absolutely not done if I were sober.

Why would I put this poison in my body that turns me into a kooky alter ego?

Because alcohol lies. Because it’s a chemical that makes you crave it. It’s almost like a host that needs more to keep itself alive. It took me as its servant. Everyone else is doing it too. They are actually jumping off the proverbial bridge.

A book I did read that made an enormous difference is “The Naked Mind” by Annie Grace. It inspired me to quit about a year and a half before I was ready to. A huge point the author makes is that it becomes easier if you begin to see it as a positive in your life.

I wasn’t ready to do that at the time, but I understood the message. I might never have been ready unless I hit bottom the way I unwillingly did this year on 2/8/21. While lying on a gurney in the hallway for hours in the middle of the night in the ER, I knew it was time. Episodes like that one were far and few between, but one is too many. People who don’t drink would never end up in that kind of situation.

I didn’t want to be one of those people. I didn’t want to want something bad for me anymore. I didn’t want it to be that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I would leave a dock on a boat without knowing alcohol would be with me. It seemed normal at the time, but there is absolutely, positively nothing normal about that. That feeling is the sign of a problem. It’s so common we rationalize it.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be free from the grip of believing a drink makes anything—even temporarily—better. My intellect knew it, but until I lived it and embraced the fact that I wasn’t missing out on anything, I didn’t want to believe it.

I am happier. I still dance around and act like my clown self. I am missing out on nothing worthwhile. I am missing out on 18 pounds, a lighter wallet, stupid decisions, regrets, headaches, cravings, and obsession with what I will eat and drink next. Good riddance.

That is how I feel 6 months in. I hope to continue. I have plenty of AA people warning me to be careful. It scares me enough not to be cocky about it and to stay the path. But I do want to share that it’s wonderful, and if you even think for a moment you might have a problem, then you do. If you wonder if you can say goodbye to it forever and feel good about it, I’m telling you from a very small amount of experience that you can.

Alcohol lies. Sober is the new cool. I love everything about quitting the drink.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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