My Alcohol Journey - and How You Can Make It Past Dry January

I had no intention of getting sober.

But I did wonder, "would my life be better without alcohol?"

This is main question Amanda White poses in her book Not Drinking Tonight.

I picked up the book in January 2022 (here’s my initial blog post on it), after coming from a world where…

  • My family is always ready to throw the next killer football tailgate or 4th of July party

  • A college setting where one could argue the only activity was to drink

  • A social culture where "getting a drink" is the go-to for meeting friends or going on dates

3 years later - I can confidently say my life is better without alcohol, or at least less of it.

My life now looks like:

  • the default is to not drink, but I will on special occasion (maybe 1 a month)

  • my fam, friends, co-workers have mocktail options available when they host

  • not waking up hungover, and instead getting up to work on my side business

But I'll make it clear it wasn't easy to get to this point, but so worth it.

When friends come to me curious about the Dry January movement of not drinking (or maybe going past January) -

here are the 3 keys I share:

1) Set the default to not drinking

Instead of always saying yes to being offered a drink, the default became no.

This gave me a moment to ask myself

"Am I excited to have this drink?

Or

"Am I getting it because everyone else is getting one?"

Drinking became an intuitive thing and saying yes to only the things I was excited about became empowering and made a drink feel special.

But what if you feel weird having nothing in your hands…

2) Know the mocktail options

So you're not drinking, but still want to join in on the festivities.

Knowing and getting creative with the non-alcoholic options is key!

Over the past 3 years, so many restaurants have added mocktail and NA beer options.

Some of my go-tos:

  • At a bar: Heineken Zero

  • At a tailgate: Athletic brewing or Brewdog NA

  • At work happy hour: non-alcoholic moscow mule

  • At a restaurant: fancy mocktail on their menu

This allows you to join in with a drink in a fancy glass that isn't water.

This kind of shuts up the people who are pushing you to drink too.

They do them, and you do you.

But the right environment can bypass this pressure…

 

3) Get in environments not centered around alcohol

Suggesting to friends or dates to go on a walk, play pickleball, get a coffee.

Doing this becomes eye opening! 

It may become apparent that some friends are your "party friends" and you start to feel distant from them.

But you will also find new friends and new hobbies on this journey.

I'm now in a friend group that plays pickleball.

I'm in a relationship where not drinking was a 2 second conversation on our 1st walking date because we were on the same page.

You see what you're looking for. The more you seek it out, the more you'll find things and people that align.

 

The secret:

  1. It's reps - not drinking 1 event at a time

  2. It's being ok being the odd one out in the beginning

  3. It's noticing how much better you feel when you don't drink, and how not yourself you feel when you do 

IT GETS EASIER, I PROMISE.

Always here to chat more about it if you want to!