The Best Reward I’ve Gotten From Quitting Alcohol May Surprise You
& it’s not “I’m saving money” or “no hangovers”
I quit drinking about four months ago.
I’ll condense a few of my reasons into this short and sweet (albeit thorny) list:
- I grew up with alcohol abuse in my house and it caused a lot of strife
- I’ve already been cutting back for years because I’m a professional dancer (read: athlete) so my tolerance has been low for a while (& this impacts how alcohol hits you)
- Being hungover is utterly terrible and a waste of time
- I don’t like being a worse version of myself
- I scaled back almost entirely in the fall due to an unexpected breakup, and again, scaling back so aggressively meant that any drink I had made me woozy and tired
- Waking up with a puffy face just ain’t it
There are many benefits to giving up booze, but by far the best I’ve received is eliminating decision fatigue.
Before quitting, anytime I’d go out for dinner, to a friend’s, or just existing in the evenings, I met myself with this question:
“Will I drink tonight?”
In my experience, there are people who are “always” drinkers. If there’s booze around and an opportunity to drink, “always” drinkers take it. If the question was posed to them, “are you drinking tonight?” the response would be, “duh”.
I’ve never been that person.
Then there are “sometimes” drinkers. That was me. Each time I went to a social event, and a server or a friend asked if I wanted something to drink, I was never sure.
“Will she or won’t she?” became an ongoing conversation in my head.
It was bloody tiring.
Most times I would say to myself, “well, one or two is fine.”
But because this was infrequent, it wasn’t actually fine as far as my body was concerned. My tolerance was so low that even small amounts hit me badly.
I always knew that if there wasn’t alcohol on the menu and everyone around me wasn’t drinking — I wouldn’t either.
I can’t tell you how freeing it is to be a “never” drinker instead of a “sometimes” drinker.
I thought the difference between having one or two drinks a week to having no drinks a week would be negligible.
But the impact on my peace is profound.
When I consider upcoming weekend plans, I’m relieved to know I’ll be at those events, completely sober; completely myself.
I won’t have any unexpected Sunday mornings. And I won’t say or do something I later regret.
I’m a “never” drinker now. If the server asks me what I want, I’m ordering kombucha, a mocktail, or tea.
There are enough tough decisions in my life.
I’m grateful that whether I’m drinking tonight is no longer one of them.
