These words are for anyone who’s wanted to give up the drink for a while, or at least try and drink less. I’ve lots of friends and people I know who have steered clear of alcohol for much longer, or given it up entirely, who I have serious respect for so I don’t want to be preachy in any way. It’s only 100 days. I’ll probably be planning my next pint as I’m writing this. I’m not a changed man or converted Buddhist, but as I finish my 100 days off the hooch I feel it could be useful to hear the account of someone with possibly a very similar relationship to alcohol as you, how they found it and what they learned from giving it up for a little over 3 months.
Why did I want to give it up?
For me I’ve always been a social binge drinker. Out on Friday and Saturday, hide in bed Sunday type thing. I started drinking like most Dublin young wans around 13/14 and haven’t taken more than 2 weeks off since then. Kind of scary when you think about it. I also never did dry January, as I thought that was the most depressing month, so it was actually the best time to drink.
Because of how ritualised drinking is among young Irish people like myself, I never really paused and thought about whether it could be having a negative effect on my physical and mental health, it just didn’t cross my mind. I obviously got hangovers but once they passed, I was almost always planning my next night out, which centred around being somewhere, drunk.
I’m definitely guilty of using alcohol as social lubricant. It shushed my anxiety and made it easier to enjoy almost anyones company. I kind of felt like I was living a Groundhog Day of hangovers and was getting a bit sick of it. I wanted to try something new, and picked 100 days, I think it sounded challenging but not impossible.
What made it hard?
Drink is everywhere. It’s attached by the hip to every social occasion you can think of. Happy, drink. Sad, drink. It’s only when you take a (small) step back from it that you really notice it.
The idea of going to the pub or to any social gathering clutching a Fanta while those around me get progressively louder felt intimidating, and it kind of was. To be honest, I was lucky I started this during the Pandemic as there hasn’t been a huge amount of nights out. When I did go out, I only had stamina to stay out till about 12, but that’s okay. You get used to it, and you’re not drunk after all, so you don’t have that extra boost of energy to keep you there even when the conversation gets boring and the rollies run out.
How did I start?
I didn’t really feel I could do it alone so I looked for support. I turned to books.
I bought 3 which helped in creating an infrastructure to base my abstinence off of. One in particular was really useful. “The Unexpected Joys of Being Sober” by Catherine Gray. In it the author details her struggles with, and addiction to, alcohol. It’s really easy to read and puts a lot of things into perspective. I found it helpful to have something to back you up in your head, especially at the start when you feel that pang to grab a drink or think fuck it, do I really need to give up the booze?
I also read up on the negative health & societal aspects of booze from throat cancers to staggering national health bills, to spook myself a bit, self-scare-mongering. I used this information as another way of reminding myself why I was doing it.
Also, non-alcoholic beer. Having something in your hand that looks, smells and (kind of) tastes like beer helped me hugely in times where it felt difficult being the only sober one. The leaders in my opinion are Peroni, Heineken and Brooklyn. They’re available in most shops and pubs in both Dublin and London so you don’t have to worry about being stuck with a water on ice for the night.
But how did I feel?
At first, to be honest, I felt nothing. I felt like I was missing out on fun for basically no reason. I felt like I was wasting nights out that could have been “ones to remember”.
But I kept the faith. In her book “The Unexpected Joys of Being Sober”, Gray describes how after 66 days you begin to feel the positive effects of breaking a bad habit. It could be bollox, but I definitely started to feel something shift around then. Physically, my skin improved a lot and I lost about 3-4 kgs of pint/fried chicken weight. I wasn’t spending as much on nights out but also avoiding the end of night or next day takeaway buzz. There’s also a certain smugness to waking up after a night out without a hangover, having Sundays is nice.
Being sober also frees up a lot of time in your calendar for other things you might want to do. You almost always have the next day that would have otherwise been sacrificed on account of a head-melting hangover and you also have a remainder of the night out since you usually head home at a reasonable time. I became more active, read, cooked, slept and to be honest overall a bit happier.
Outro
If it’s been something you’ve wanted to do for a while or just feel like a challenge I’d definitely recommend it. It was tough but not impossible. You get to experience life from a slightly different perspective for a while and I genuinely feel like I’ve learned a lot from the experience, if only that I’m an awkward fuck and I hate fake laughing at shite jokes.