If you have shame, regret or apprehension over your drinking habits, have tried to beat your alcoholism but can’t, and/or worry that life after alcohol is bleak and pointless, this post is for you.
I’m here to tell you that quitting alcohol can be enjoyable, relieving, fun, even, and life after alcohol is amazing. I quit drinking and I am not in recovery, I don’t count the days since I quit, and I never, ever want a drink. I beat my alcoholism by realizing that I wasn’t the problem, but rather an outdated viewpoint on alcohol and addiction was the problem.
Now, If you drink, and you love it and you don’t want to quit drinking, then don’t bother with this post. It’s not for you. I’m not going to try to convince you to quit drinking if you don’t want to. I’m also not going to tell you all the reasons why alcohol is terrible. You know the reasons why. (In fact, that’s part of the appeal.)
Still here? Okay, good.
Quitting drinking is the (second) best decision of my entire life.
And it’s second only to starting a relationship with my husband. I cannot speak for everyone, obviously, and addiction is everywhere and it’s personal. How we deal with it is even more personal. But the biggest impediment I had to quitting was the fear that I would never truly enjoy life again.
Not only is life as enjoyable—it’s soooooo much more so.
If you’re locked into a shame silo like I was, with no one to whom you could utter your deepest fears about your own alcohol addiction, you might find yourself searching the web. I mean, why not, right? The internet is such a great tool.
I’m not saying don’t do it, but I am saying that if you do do it, and you end up feeling worse or more anxious, you’re not alone, and you’re not getting an accurate representation of post-alcohol life. The good news is, I’m here to tell you that your future doesn’t have to be an endless expanse of struggle and no-fun-ness.
The internet—and much of the medical establishment—sucks for information and support on alcoholism and how to beat it.
No, I’m not a doctor or therapist or counselor. I am not pretending to be one. I’m a fairly regular person who was lucky to have a good upbringing, little tragedy and little history of addiction in my personal life or family history.
The internet is a wonderful playground of knowledge and support for many things; for finding support on quitting alcohol, it’s a cluster[BLEEP] of contradictions.
Here’s a look at what Google brings up when I do the search for “do I drink too much”:
Most of these articles offer the basic, “If you have to ask…then YES” answer, followed by “Here are some signs you might be an alcoholic,” and “Seek out treatment with AA or a doctor if you think you have a problem.”
And while I appreciate the autonomy on this, it’s sending you a bunch of mixed messages. At best, that will lead you to find the answers yourself by making healthy choices (which may include moderation). At worst, it will make you say, “F&%$ it!,” grab the nearest wine bottle, pull that cork out with your teeth and start chugging like a pro.
Kick the Drink…Easily!
I should mention that a lot of my current views on alcohol I gleaned from Jason Vale’s Kick the Drink…Easily!, which hits many of these points and much more. The book itself is a strategy to quit, and it works. While it didn’t give me the final boost to quitting for good, I did “quit” many times reading that book, sometimes for months at a time, and I learned a lot about “the alcohol trap” (as he calls it). Please don’t take my relapses as a reason not to read it.
Above all, Jason Vale will make you feel so much better about your own alcohol issues, and will revolutionize how you see drinking, the alcohol industry as a whole, and alcohol addiction.
If you think quitting alcohol is hard, or you think life without alcohol is hard or boring, then you’re putting belief in some myths. That’s good news! It means you’re a lot more in control than you might have thought.
Here are the myths I find to be the worst offenders. There are many more to be found, however.
Myth #1: Alcohol is a normal part of life.
This is possibly the biggest con job there ever was.
Alcohol isn’t normal or necessary. It’s been normalized, certainly, but it’s not normal. It isn’t necessary for your existence, and it’s not nutritious. You gain absolutely nothing by consuming it (if you don’t believe me yet on this, read on).
All the following myths follow this one, so while it’s not possibly the most outwardly dangerous, it’s the most insidious. It’s the reason why a lot of the medical establishment and society gives us a host of contradictions in relation to alcohol. We know alcohol can be a very, very bad thing, and yet, most of the population consumes it and it’s legal. So how do you address a topic that is fully endorsed by the government, your friends and family, and yet could be killing you?
Usually, the blame falls away from the establishments, the governments, society and even the drug, and it places it solely on your shoulders.
If YOU have a problem with alcohol, it must be YOUR problem. Because look, everyone else is doing just fine!
This is another myth, and I’ll address it later, but it leads to a slew of contradictions like:
- Some drinking is great and normal! AND: Too much is bad. Terrible. The worst.
- Alcoholism is most likely a disease you can’t control. AND: You have to figure out for yourself if you have alcoholism.
- Alcoholism is a disease in your genetic makeup. AND: Exercise self-control and moderation to not succumb to alcoholism.
- Alcohol is a drug. AND: Alcohol is a rite of passage and everyone drinks.
- Alcohol is fun and safe! AND: TOO MUCH FUN WITH ALCOHOL WILL KILL YOU. Never get drunk!
- Just because you drink sometimes doesn’t mean you have a problem. AND: If you drink more than one drink a day you definitely have a problem.
- Drugs are bad! AND: But alcohol is totally normal and non-addictive.
- You’re either an alcoholic or you’re not; it’s a hard line. AND: No one but YOU can tell if you’re an alcoholic.
Authorities should treat alcohol as the drug—and the danger—that it is, but I don’t think it should be illegal.
I’m going to take this moment to just say that I do not believe we should bring back prohibition, or that everyone needs to quit drinking alcohol. I merely wish that we could realize that alcohol is a drug, and that we should approach it accordingly. What makes it worse is the discord between the stigma we have against drugs and the attitude towards alcohol, which we understand is a drug, but somehow…it gets a pass.
Because it’s legal. And big business. And most people do it.
The binoculars through which you look have a lot to do with what you’re looking at.
The thing with alcohol addiction that you have to understand is that it changes the way you look at the world. It gives you a set of special binoculars through which to see, and it obfuscates a lot of truth, mostly about alcohol itself. If you’re in the alcohol trap, trying to imagine a world without alcohol through those binoculars will look teeth-grindingly tedious and awful.
But you’re looking through the wrong binoculars. You need new binoculars. And once you free yourself of alcohol, those binoculars will change.
Most of society, though, is still looking through those flawed binoculars, including the medical establishment.
And because (almost) everyone does it, and considers it “normal,” then participating, even with moderation, means one doesn’t have an addiction, right?
Wrong.
Truth #1: Alcohol is neither normal nor necessary for a full human existence.
Myth #2: If you practice moderation, you don’t have an addiction to alcohol.
Everyone who drinks alcohol is addicted to alcohol.
I’m going to say that again, louder for the folks in the back: everyone who drinks alcohol is addicted to alcohol.
You wouldn’t have alcohol if you were not addicted on some level. Do you remember the first time you tried it? Gross, right? It didn’t taste good, and no, you didn’t develop a more refined palate. What happened is that it gave you a result, your body craved that result again, so you told yourself you liked the taste in order to get that result.
You deceived yourself. You might think you like the taste because you’ve associated the feeling of getting high with the taste, and it sends pleasure chemicals through your brain when you give your body the thing it’s been missing that it’s addicted to. That’s how drugs work.
No one wants to be *that* person.
The term “addiction” has a huge stigma, though. We reserve it for the worst situations, partially because addiction can be a crime, unfortunately. So if you have a glass of wine a night, yes, I’m going to say that you’re addicted to alcohol. But no, I’m not saying you’re in danger as though you had a heroin addiction.
Speaking of heroin, people don’t usually get away with saying they take their heroin in moderation, or that they take heroin but don’t have an addiction. If you take it, you’re addicted to it. Same with cigarettes, which doesn’t really give you much effect at all, other than quelling the anxiety of being without a cigarette. If you smoke cigarettes, it’s understood you’re addicted.
“But alcohol isn’t addicting like heroin or cigarettes!” people say. Hm. Really? So if you’re completely not addicted to your wine or bourbon, why would you need to moderate? Why do you need to keep track of how many you’ve had? To borrow an idea from Vale’s book, you don’t hear people talking about how many bananas they eat, and how they’ve been really good about their banana intake and they’ve cut down but it’s really fine anyway because they don’t have a problem with bananas.
If someone talked like bananas like that, which is how many people talk about wine (or beer, or bourbon, etc.), you’d recognize a simple truth: they have a problem with bananas.
Likewise, if you drink, you have a problem with alcohol.
But you know that already, right? Isn’t that part of the fun of it? It’s dangerous and unpredictable. It’s not fun to think about eating too many bananas.
I’m not saying that being addicted on a one-glass-a-night level is as bad as shooting up heroin. It’s not something that requires intervention or even abstinence. I’m just saying that addiction is a spectrum, and drinking a little doesn’t remove you from that spectrum.
Groupthink.
So now going back to Myth #1, you see how problematic it is when you’re getting addiction advice from people, or society as a whole, who are addicted themselves, even if to a small extent. Part of the addiction trap is convincing yourself and others that you’re fine and not addicted, so the line drawn between their behavior and yours will be that much stronger. They will be even less likely to include themselves in your group, and more likely to blame you, your genes or your behavior.
I had lunch with a friend recently and I happened to bring up that I quit drinking alcohol. Instantly, he said, “Well, I don’t drink that much. I mean, I drink, but it’s not extreme.” He then detailed how much he drinks and when. Why would he feel the need to say this? I didn’t mention his drinking habits at all, only my own. But immediately when I say I don’t need the drug, those who do partake feel invalidated in their own behavior. Why? I suspect because deep down we all know it’s silly and possibly dangerous and unnecessary. When people don’t adhere to the same groupthink, it threatens them.
Another layer to this is the barrage of advertising we get from alcohol. It’s a big industry, and like anything that’s advertised, that industry tries to convince us that we are less than without it.
Don’t get on soapboxes.
A note of caution: do NOT blame or guilt people who drink, or get on a soapbox and tell your imbibing loved ones why they’re ruining their lives. To do so would only be to argue some sort of superiority over them. You are not better than them if you do not drink and they do. They are part of the same deception that I was, that you are or were, and are looking through those same flawed binoculars. If you try to argue with them points like, “Well, you’re addicted even if you don’t know it,” chances are, they will double down, think you’re an ass and not listen. Addiction is not rational. It doesn’t listen to reason.
I’m not on a mission to make everyone quit alcohol. I’m on a mission to let people know that not only is alcohol unnecessary for a full and vibrant life, but also that it impedes you reaching your greatest levels of personal fulfillment. But a person has to decide for themselves that they want to quit.
Truth #2: Everyone who drinks has an alcohol addiction, big or small.
Myth #3: Alcohol relaxes you.
Alcohol relaxes you the same way that taking off a painfully small pair of shoes relaxes you. But if you never put those shoes on in the first place, you wouldn’t need to be relaxed.
Once your body is addicted to a drug, no matter how small, absence of the drug causes anxiety. Taking the drug brings relief, yes, but from the very problem that the drug brought you in the first place.
The disease and the antidote.
Alcohol is tricky this way because it’s very, very accommodating at times. It will be okay with putting off that gratification for hours, days, weeks or months even. But if you take a week off drinking, and plan to drink at the end of it, you’re just getting pleasure from feeling like you’re in control, and you’re feeding the pain of not drinking with the imagined reward at the end of it: drinking. And your alcohol-brain will likely be really good with not drinking for a period if it knows it will be in control again soon.
Cigarettes work the same way. They don’t relax you, but rather, they satisfy a craving. The craving is the tension, so the drug is the cure.
If you still don’t believe me, then answer me this: are drunk people relaxed? If alcohol relaxes you, then wouldn’t taking a lot of alcohol make you reeeaaaally relaxed? Why do we need spas? Just get drunk, right?
Unless you’re counting passed out as “relaxed,” then no. Drunk people are either amped up and emotional, or they’re stupified and zombified. That’s not relaxed.
Truth #3: Alcohol does not relax you. It causes the disease that it seems to be curing.
Myth #4: Life without alcohol is boring. Alcohol makes life fun.
This is, for me, the most prevalent of the alcohol myths and the one I had the biggest challenge dispelling. Part of this is because most of the “help” out there doesn’t make you feel better in any way about life post-alcohol. It’s framed in a way that’s always partly punitive, as I’ve mentioned above.
I have a whole article on 40 ways my life is better without alcohol, and I highly suggest you read it. On top of that, I will say this: my life is infinitely more exciting and meaningful now that I don’t drink. It doesn’t even compare.
The funny thing about this myth is how the drug and the entire industry has really turned the tables and gaslit most of the country (and the world) into thinking life is more dull without it.
In fact, it’s life with alcohol that’s dull.
Have you ever been at a party sober when everyone is drunk? It’s not fun, and the reason isn’t because you’re sober. It’s because you’re around a bunch of boring people.
People are really, really boring when they drink. They make grand proclamations, overestimate the importance of what they’re saying and repeat themselves. They might even get overly emotional and yell or cry at you, but they aren’t actually insightful or intelligent.
Yes, you could join them in drinking with the goal of having more “fun,” but that’s really just making yourself boring in order to tolerate the boring people around you.
Drinking doesn’t make your life fun—it changes how you view and remember fun.
It lowers your bar for engagement, and raises the chance you won’t remember anyway. The next day you’ll wake up in a headache and a sweat, remembering little, and say, “Well, I don’t remember anything! Must have been great!”
What’s really happening is prolonged gratification, which only intensifies the correlation between alcohol and what you consider to be “fun.” Like most people, you won’t drink all day every day, but you’ll go to work, come home, maybe work out and make dinner and put the kids to bed before pouring a glass of wine and putting your feet up and doing what you’ve waited all day to do. Maybe you waited until the end of the week, which is the same process over a longer period of time, with an even bigger gratification because you’ve waited even longer for it.
And yes, putting your feet up at the end of the day is relaxing and nice. Having the day’s work done is nice. And when you tell your brain all day or all week that you’re going to have “fun” at the end of it, and that “fun” is having wine (or beer or run or whatever), and do that over and over and over again, your brain will redefine “fun” to mean “alcohol,” regardless of the actual fun or relaxation you have. This makes your alcohol-brain happy; it wants you to think alcohol is fun so your non-alcohol-brain will be on board with this drinking thing. The more your non-alcohol-brain is on board, the less it will question alcohol-brain’s behavior.
Alcohol obscures the actual fun in your life.
All the things that are actually exciting and fun about life improve when alcohol is not involved. The most obvious example is human connection, which cannot happen with too much alcohol in the mix. Yes, there are times you had an amazing time drinking with this friend or that, but the fun wasn’t because of the alcohol; it was in spite of it. And I think we can all agree that the more alcohol that is consumed, the less real connection you’re making.
There is a caveat here, which is that your idea of fun will change when you quit drinking. That’s a good thing. You don’t have the same standard for fun as you did when you were seven, or sixteen. Your binoculars change, as they have always changed.
I can still go to a bar and get a ginger beer at night with friends, but honestly, what’s more fun to me is chilling together with tea and a fun show or a board game at my apartment. Nighttime fun may be quickly replaced with daytime or—dare I say it—morning fun. Yes, MORNING FUN. It’s a thing. You can dance like a madwoman hopped up on dark roast and be LOVING IT. If you were hungover, you’d still be in bed. Sick.
In summation, you have an amazing, insightful, exciting, fulfilling, loving, interesting life ahead of you without alcohol. I promise.
Truth #4: Life is better and more interesting without alcohol than with it.
Myth #5: If you find yourself addicted to alcohol, you’re an alcoholic.
Look, I don’t believe in alcoholics.
Away with labels that don’t help you.
I do believe in alcoholism. And alcohol addiction. I believe it’s something you have, but not something you are. To say so draws a clear line in the sand between those who are and those who aren’t. If you want to dismiss that as a matter of semantics, fine, but I think it makes a huge difference in how we treat the disease of addiction.
Much of the accepted view is that alcoholism is something that some people have and others do not. Why don’t we do that with heroin, though? Or cocaine? We don’t say, “Well, I have a little heroin every night, but I’m not a junky,” the same way someone will say, “Well, I have two glasses of wine every night but I’m not an alcoholic.”
The simple answer to why we even have the alcoholic label is that it protects those who still partake in the drug, and it shields the institutions that tolerate it, profit from it, and promote it, while condemning those who abuse it.
No one wants to label themselves as an alcoholic, and so people will usually go to great lengths to avoid this label, thereby clouding their own judgement of the habit in question. In other words, if I determine that I’m not an alcoholic, then my drinking habits must not be a problem.
This myth is part of a bigger one that says that you don’t have control over your addiction. I don’t believe this at all. Again, you wouldn’t blame a heroin addiction on your own lack of “control,” but on the heroin. However, some people do find solace in this.
However, use it if it helps you.
I think labels like this one can work if it makes things easier for you. While I don’t believe in the “alcoholic” label, I do see that it brings relief to some people. Alcohol addiction is insidious, and whatever works for you is what you should stick to. For some, accepting a label means they can take steps to accept help and quitting that much easier.
For others, however, it brings shame. If this is true, then please toss the idea of being an “alcoholic” out the window and accept that you just slipped deeper into alcohol addiction. That is all. It’s not that you suddenly changed, or that you are this monster you never realized. Rest assured that you have nothing to be ashamed of. Alcohol, by the nature of the drug itself and the mechanisms that perpetuate it, is designed to get you hooked. You are no less of an amazing person because you fell into the alcohol trap.
The addiction problem isn’t with you, it’s with the drug.
Drugs are going to do what drugs do, which is get you addicted, and get you to want more and more and more of it. Alcohol is no exception, and it’s never ever ever going to do anything differently, not for your mom, not for your friend, and certainly not for you.
You haven’t failed.
Truth #5: You’re not an alcoholic; you just fell into a trap.
Myth #6: Alcohol makes people more social and confident.
What’s the third thing you do when you get to a party?
You get a drink.
First, you greet the hosts, maybe a couple people. Second, you put your coat or purse away.
Third, you say, “Let’s get a drink.”
It’s a no-brainer. It’s something to do that doesn’t involve inserting yourself into a conversation or starting a new one. And, as they tell us, it makes us more sociable, confident and charming.
Really?
Does alcohol actually help loosen things up?
This myth is predicated on one I’ve already addressed: that alcohol relaxes you. This takes that myth a step further, with the understanding that alcohol will also relax you in social settings, helping you overcome your social anxiety and get comfortable.
I’ve spent many a night at a party, buzzed and not, worrying about how awkward I look standing alone. Now, I may remember the non-drunk episodes more, or have less concern about them when I’m intoxicated, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
On a group level, I can’t deny that there’s that period at the beginning of a a party when the vibe is awkward and new. People get drinks in the hopes to “loosen up,” and after maybe an hour, you start to get in the groove and have fun.
I started noticing how this “loosening up” thing happened regardless of whether I or others were drinking. YES, there is a period where the vibe needs to gel, but it has nothing to do with the alcohol and everything to do with human behavior. It’s just people getting used to their surroundings. Alcohol doesn’t help the process along. Correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things exist simultaneously doesn’t mean one caused the other.
But surely it makes you more confident to strike up conversations with others, right?
It makes you more reckless, have poor judgement and listen less. Sure, you may talk more. But that’s not really being more social. And if you have too much to drink, your evening will up with others saying either that you’re obnoxious or passed out.
Truth #5: Alcohol makes you anti-social.
Myth #6: Alcohol is good for you. But only a little.
LOL.
It’s not. Alcohol is never good for you. People will fling these articles and studies about, like this poor excuse for an article on health benefits of drinking. Granted, this is in Shape Magazine, and I would argue that it’s not so much a scientific angle as it is clickbait fun that gives the viewer permission to indulge.
All the “benefits,” though, are in the drinks despite the alcohol. For instance, it’s about the grapes, the apples, or the cranberry juice, not the alcohol itself. You could get those benefits from drinking the healthy components without the alcohol.
Times might be changing.
It’s been a long-held concept that moderate drinking is good for your health, while drinking above a moderate level is absolutely terrible for your health. Moderate drinking has typically been linked to longer life span, reduced heart disease and reduced chance of diabetes. However, last year a study came out saying that no amount of alcohol is healthy, and these previous studies might have been skewed by the fact that many of the non-drinking subjects had committed to abstinence because of health or addiction issues, making their health stats much more negative.
I would also argue that many of these “benefits” are another case of correlation not causation. For instance, if you look at this article on WebMD, it claims alcohol “gets you more active.” Just because people who drink moderately work out more doesn’t mean alcohol makes you work out. It might make you feel so terrible that you’re inspired to work out, but by that logic, so does a gallon of ice cream. Or the point that it “prevents kidney stones,” but even by their admission, that’s likely only because alcohol is a diuretic and makes you pee more.
I would love to see more information on the heart health and diabetes benefits, and I highly doubt that alcohol itself is what is responsible, especially when it changes so dramatically with heavy drinking. It’s likely that other factors in the subjects’ lives cause these health benefits that have nothing directly to do with alcohol.
But the 2018 global study is clear: the risks of drinking far overshadow any possible benefits.
It’s also healthier for those around you.
Roughly 40% of crimes are committed while under the influence of alcohol. And alcohol is correlated with more crimes than any other drug. As we know, situations can escalate quickly when under the influence.
Again, I’m not saying you’re going to murder someone because you went out for a beer. But this statistic should not surprise you. If anything, it seems too low.
Truth #6: Alcohol has no health benefits. The healthiest thing you can do is not imbibe.
Myth #7: Everyone else can control their intake.
It’s second nature for many of us to give others the benefit of the doubt to other people before we give it to ourselves.
You’re not alone.
When I was drinking, I assumed that my problems with alcohol were the exception, not the rule. But just because people don’t talk about their drinking problems doesn’t mean that they don’t have them.
Since I’ve quit and I’ve told people that I’ve quit, I notice that while some people get defensive, others open up and mention their own struggles. It’s not usually a big confession, just a matter-of-fact statement, or even a bit of a release for them.
Everyone who drinks has to monitor their intake. The constant monitoring is exhausting, and it’s the price of doing business. You monitor, which causes a lot of stress and indecision, or…you don’t, and if you don’t, well, you likely will have lots of problems, fast.
Truth #7: Your addiction problem is common. Most people who drink worry about their own intake.
In conclusion.
My intent is to bring to light some of the myths around alcohol in the hopes that you will at least feel less shame in your own struggles. If you felt inspired by this post, I highly recommend getting a copy of Vale’s book Kick the Drink…Easily!. You can get a hard copy or buy the kindle version for about $10.
Vale brings up a lot of what I say above in way more depth, and with many, many myths. He knocks them down one by one, all the while helping to change those binoculars. Changing the binoculars is a massive step in kicking the habit for good.
I never participated in AA, and while I don’t love the feeling of helplessness it purports, I do LOVE that it’s so available, free, and involves a community. Community helps solidify whatever method you do use to quit. There are also lots of online communities that help you get support and encouragement. Soberistas is a great one, though it does cost money.
I quit, but I’m not in recovery. I don’t think about drinking at all, except to recognize the beauty of being awake and alive each morning without a hangover and without fear or shame.
What’s your story? Have you quit, and if so, what helped you?