How to Give Up Alcohol (Without Actually Saying Goodbye): 7 Reasons to Start
Do you want to give up alcohol without actually giving it up? Is that even possible, you ask?
Are you looking to cut way back on the amount you drink but aren’t sure where to start or if you’re even ready?
I see you. I struggled with this exact. same. thing.
Changing how you drink so that you drink less, if at all, feels like such a huge and even scary commitment. You know it’s the right one for you (and your family, career goals, well-being, finances, you name it), but you’re not confident that you can manage it right now.
Give Up Alcohol's Control Over Your Choices
But you can. And yes, giving up alcohol does not necessarily mean saying sayonara, see ya later. For me and my lifestyle, "giving up" alcohol means giving up the control that alcohol has over me. It means shifting the reins so that I'm riding that pony, not the other way around.
You, too, can change how you think so that you release, or give up, alcohol's control over you, your mood, your day, and your choices.
When you start to unlearn what you've been taught about alcohol, your relationship with yourself and others around you will start to shift. You will begin to feel empowered to make decisions that truly benefit you, no strings attached. And you are going to feel a million times better than you do right now. In fact, there are going to be areas of your life that will improve that you cannot even begin to anticipate. Be prepared for truly extraordinary surprises.
A Moderate Drinker Calls It (Mostly) Quits
I’m not an alcoholic, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with alcohol, per se. There have definitely been phases in my life, however, when I drank too much. College, for one. Grad school, definitely another.
I favor wine, usually red. Before I largely stopped drinking alcohol earlier this year, I would typically drink three (sometimes four) nights a week. When I did, I would usually have two glasses. Throughout my adult life, I’ve gone through periods of drinking more (holidays, travel, winter) and less (big work deadlines, summer), and even not at all (pregnancy).
But I’d never before considered cutting my consumption back permanently. Alcohol, I thought, was an effective, even critical tool for helping this busy working mama relax. I deserved it. I also thought that celebrations and parties, holidays, gatherings of friends and family (no matter how small), dinners out, special dinners in, relaxing with my husband at night, etc., went hand-in-hand with booze. Some of these occasions were even synonymous with drinking alcohol (weddings, anyone?).
That’s what I’d been taught by our culture and had come to believe.
Alcohol in the Midst of a Pandemic
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a correlation between drinking and poor sleep. After I’d drink, I’d fall asleep just fine. But, like clockwork, I’d find myself waking up a few hours later, usually around 3 am. Then I’d struggle to fall back asleep. That’s if I was lucky. Sometimes I’d just stay awake until my toddler woke me up. (I’ve gotten way too good at a fake-cheery “Gooood Moooorning” voice.)
Like it did for a lot of people, especially for mothers (both stay-at-home and working), the pandemic intensified the alcohol–shitty sleep cycle that I’d already found myself caught in.
My days pre-pandemic were often pretty stressful. After the pandemic hit, I would sometimes wake up in the morning and think, How in the hell am I going to get through today? Our childcare provider had closed down, my work was in jeopardy, and a frightening global virus was infecting a staggering number of people daily. Each day felt so high stakes. A glass or two of wine, four to five nights a week became the norm.
But then I noticed that I was having trouble focusing, my headaches felt semi-permanent, and I almost always woke up feeling groggy. I also found myself increasingly irritated and impatient with both my son and my husband. And this was all due to what most people would consider moderate drinking. Something had to give, and I knew that that thing was alcohol.
How Do You “Give Up Alcohol" Without Becoming a Teetotaler?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think drinking alcohol is bad, at least in the abstract. At this point in time, I don’t plan to give it up entirely. Instead, I’m scaling my consumption back so that it’s not part of my day-to-day life.
I like wine. It can pair beautifully with a meal. It can be delicious on its own. It has a rich, fascinating history.
I will keep drinking wine on occasion. I’ll probably, for instance, have a glass of prosecco on Christmas. (I don’t, however, want to fall into the trap in which celebrating becomes synonymous with drinking.)
But I no longer drink alcohol on a daily (or even weekly) basis. I don’t, for example, drink on a Monday night simply to unwind. I don’t wake up on Friday morning and think, Yay, it’s Friday! Extra wine for meeee tonight! (If I do wake up to those thoughts, I drill down and ask myself why I’m feeling that way.)
I’ve been referring to this approach as “Mindful Drinking.” It’s a concept that has started appearing in different media outlets in the past couple of years, and it appears to be gaining steam. Click here to learn more about Mindful Drinking.
7 Reasons I Chose to Start Mindful Drinking
Take a look at the below points. Do any of them ring true for you, as well?
1. I Was Looking Forward to a Drink at Night TOO Much
Beyond getting off the physical and emotional rollercoaster I was riding, one of the main reasons I wanted to mostly quit alcohol was because I found myself looking forward to it too much. I wanted to rush through bedtime with my son so that I could hightail it back to the living room for that first thrilling sip of vino. Or I’d find myself in the middle of a stressful work situation and think, This will all disappear when I can sit down later tonight and have a couple of glasses of cabernet.
I felt like these were signs of a growing dependency, and it made me nervous. Although I don’t think I was spiraling toward alcoholism — I’m too much of a lightweight for that — never say never. I have relatives who’ve seriously abused alcohol, and there is research to suggest that alcoholism is genetic.
2. Alcohol Was Robbing Me of a Life Lived in the Present Moment
Inherent in my commitment was a desire to be more present in the immediate moment. I find I’m always looking forward to the next thing, to the thing that will help me get through the grind. That thing could be the end of a taxing project, the start of a vacation (not so much in 2020), or, before I stopped drinking alcohol regularly, that glass or two of wine at the end of the day.
This type of mindset robs us of so much. The biggest thing that it’s taken from me, however, has been quality time and connection with my son, who turns three in April 2021.
No, I did not dream about drinking wine straight from the bottle whenever I was in parenting mode — a mode that I’m in more often than not. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The situation was much more nuanced than that.
What I mean is that booze used to always be there, in the background, a light at the end of the tunnel. When things got stressful for me as a parent, I knew (whether consciously or unconsciously) that I had a sure-fire release waiting for me, a powerful tool to help me relax later.
3. The Wine Mom Cliche was Feeling Too Real
Let’s just say those wine-mom memes used to resonate. So much. Now they just make me sad. I’m not judging those moms; in fact, I feel overwhelming empathy for them. No, what makes me sad is that we live in a culture that has forced us into that corner. It’s a corner in which we turn, laughingly, to booze to cope with the fact that we don’t have enough support.
I love my child in ways that I cannot even begin to articulate, other than to say that the love is so strong that it leaves my heart bruised and aching. He is my world. I know I am a great mother. But I wanted to be better. Not perfect — that’s not possible — but better. (I still do! It’s an ongoing process.)
4. Alcohol Made Less Room for Things I Love
Alcohol was also creating less room in my life for the things that were truly important to me. I was suffering from a case of misplaced priorities, with wine serving as a mediocre substitute for my interests and passions.
Drinking zaps my concentration and saps my energy. When I drink alcohol at night, I typically don’t read my book (or anything for that matter), I don’t work on my own writing (either this blog or a novel I’ve been tinkering with), and I usually don’t connect with family and friends (either via FaceTime or text). I even get distracted when watching movies or TV shows. It’s like all of a sudden I have the attention span of a small terrier. I have a low tolerance for alcohol, so one glass gets me buzzed no problemo.
These days, after I put my son to bed, I head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea or hot chocolate. In the summer, I was dabbling in some pretty impressive mocktails; now that it’s winter, though, I crave warmth. I’ll chat with my husband and then watch a TV show, work on my own writing, or catch up on client work.
If I could, I’d take a bath multiple times a week, even in the dead of summer. Tragically, we don’t have a bathtub. Oh lawdy do I regret the day we signed the lease on this apartment. It’s OK, though. I still have my books, and I try to read now every night. I often find that I meditate, too, right before I go to sleep.
5. I Was Confusing Wine with Authentic Self-Care
My non-alcoholic evenings may sound very wholesome to you. But trust me, they are the ultimate act of self-care.
Which is so ironic, because we (myself included) often drink wine in the name of self-care.
Perhaps wine can be a form of self-soothing, a fun source of enjoyment every now and then. But when you’re drinking it regularly and you find that it’s interfering with your priorities, leaving you feeling drained and foggy, or creating suboptimal thought patterns, then it becomes the antithesis of self-care. It's self-sabotage. It’s also not a substitute for the real, hands-on help that overstretched parents need.
6. Alcohol Could Really Make Me Feel Like Crap
So, back to where this all started. My moderate alcohol-consumption habits were starting to make me feel crappy.
My sleep was awful. I was exhausted. When my son woke me up at 6 am, I felt like I had to crawl out of a deep, dark well in order to just prop myself up in bed. Or maybe I was already awake when he’d burst through the door, growing increasingly anxious about what it would mean to have to be “on” all day after only 4 hours of sleep.
I lacked focus. I wasn’t as productive as I knew I could be. I had the shortest fuse on the planet. I was looking for a fight.
I’m far from feeling like a million bucks these days. But I’m sleeping infinitely better. I wake up much more easily now. I have energy and I have drive.
What has been most exciting has been the realization that I have this incredible well of patience within me. And because of that, I have joy. Sure, I had joy before; moments of it, at least. But this patience has allowed me to be truly present, especially during hard times, with my son and with myself. It’s given me so much confidence, creating a feedback loop that seems to have heightened all the other improvements brought about in my life by cutting down on alcohol.
7. I Refused to Make Booze the Enemy
I started Mindful Drinking partially because I didn't want booze to become the enemy. And by pulling back from everyday drinking, it doesn't.
Why not cut alcohol out completely, you might ask?
Because if I cut it out completely, I know that it could become an enemy. Alcohol could potentially take on forbidden-fruit status, making it even more tempting. Think about it. If you’re trying to lose weight and you say to yourself, “OK, no more dessert, the end,” well then you’re probably just setting yourself up for failure. The backfire-potential on that one is enormous.
Unless you’re an alcoholic and have a serious drinking problem,* I don’t think you need to cut alcohol out if you want to keep drinking it (more power to you if you want to fully quit). And I want to keep drinking it. I like it. I just don’t want it to have the power over me that I it once did. I want to be in control.
"Giving Up" Alcohol with Mindful Drinking
You’ve probably been reading this because you’re thinking about quitting alcohol or cutting back on drinking. Maybe you’re ready to make the commitment, but you don’t know where to start or how. Take a look at my post on Mindful Drinking to learn more about how you can effectively shift your relationship with alcohol and, as a result, your consumption patterns.
It can be exhilarating to start. It can feel like a chore. It can be downright scary. It can be all of those things, and more.
At the heart of these hang ups is fear. Fear that you’ll miss it too much. Fear of what people will think. Fear of not knowing what to do when it’s gone. Fear that you’re giving up something that you not only need, but deserve. Let me tell you, you deserve so much more. And once you push past the fear, you’ll find a dazzling, life-affirming freedom.
*I am not a medical professional and strongly advise you to speak to your health care provider or a mental health clinician if you are struggling with alcoholism or other mental health issues.
