I didn’t decide to stop drinking overnight. It started quietly, on the Saturday and Sunday mornings when I woke up feeling just a little off – not sick, not hungover, just not myself. I didn’t have the energy I wanted for my family, and I didn’t feel aligned with the life I was trying to create. It was a small knowing at first, but it stayed with me.
For years, I went back and forth. I’d take breaks from alcohol – sometimes for a month, sometimes from September to December. These breaks felt easier because they had a start and an end. I could tell myself, “I’m just taking time off until this date.” It didn’t feel final. It felt safe.
During that time, I consumed everything I could find – YouTube videos, articles, books – many of them promoting the idea that alcohol could still be part of a “healthy” lifestyle. I wanted to believe I could enjoy wine and wake up with steady energy the next morning. I wanted to believe alcohol wasn’t affecting me as much as I suspected it was.
But deep down, I knew.
No study – on either side – could override how I actually felt.
My anxiety was increasing. I had moments I called “anxiety meltdowns,” when life suddenly felt too big and I didn’t know how to hold it. Nothing dramatic was happening around me, yet inside I felt overwhelmed. Fragile. Unsteady. That was the truth I couldn’t ignore anymore.
In those moments, I even started reading books about anxiety, convinced I might be developing symptoms that needed managing. But the more I read, the more I realized that what I was feeling didn’t quite fit the descriptions. With longer self-reflection, I had to admit – with disappointment but also honesty – that alcohol might be playing a role.
I think for a long time I just wanted to be like everyone around me. People enjoyed their drinks and appeared happy and normal; no one talked about the next morning. But my idea of the next day was different. I wanted to journal, wake up before my family, go for a run or to the gym. And yet the impact of alcohol left me sluggish. Unfortunately, that sluggishness accumulates – moments, mornings, days – over the years you never get back.
One year, after finishing my usual fall break, something shifted. Instead of counting down the days until my next glass of wine, I wondered what would happen if I simply kept going. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t make a declaration. I journaled. I read stories from people who had chosen an alcohol-free life. I allowed myself to imagine what my life might look like with more clarity, more calm, more me.
I didn’t create a grand plan.
I didn’t say “forever.”
I just made one decision at a time.
When an event came up, I prepared. Sometimes I had a small elevator speech explaining why I wasn’t drinking. Other times, I didn’t explain anything at all. I brought my own drinks, sometimes my own snacks, and I always checked in with myself: Why am I going? What do I want from this experience?
And if I didn’t feel like going, I paused long enough to know whether I was avoiding something… or honouring myself.
But here’s the part that surprised me the most: I never once felt regret.
Not once.
Every morning after a dinner, a party, a wedding, a vacation, or even a funeral, I woke up with one overwhelming feeling – gratitude. Gratitude for my clarity. Gratitude for my calm. Gratitude for the courage it took to choose differently when it would have been so easy to blend in.
That gratitude became fuel.
Slowly, without any loud transformation moment, my life began to shift. My mornings felt lighter. My anxiety softened. My self-trust grew. I felt more grounded in who I was and who I wanted to be. Alcohol had been a small part of my life, but removing it made space for something I didn’t expect – a steady sense of alignment.
It wasn’t always easy. Social settings sometimes felt uncomfortable. There were moments when I wondered if I was being “too much” or “too different.” But with every celebration, vacation, and emotional moment I experienced fully – without alcohol – I realized I wasn’t missing anything. I was gaining myself.
Now, four years into this alcohol-free life, I see it clearly: this choice didn’t take anything away. It gave me back a version of myself I had been missing – present, calm, grounded, and honest.
Not every day is perfect. But every day feels real. And that, for me, has been the most meaningful change of all.
It all started with one honest question: What if I deserve to feel better than this?
