I stopped drinking ten months ago. It’s the longest I’ve ever gone. I’ve been thinking a lot about what finally made me stop because the truth is, I loved drinking. I really did.
Drinking was such a big part of my life. It was part of growing up, part of my Irish culture, part of friendships, celebrations, dinners, weddings, birthdays. It was just what we did. I started drinking when I was probably thirteen or fourteen, so I don’t really know much of my life without it.
And for a long time, I genuinely enjoyed it.
But eventually the pain of drinking became greater than the joy of it.
I still loved the idea of drinking, but I absolutely hated how I felt afterward.
The mornings were becoming unbearable. Waking up with anxiety, trying to remember what had happened the night before. Wondering what I’d said, what I’d done, whether I’d embarrassed myself. Sometimes not wanting to hear anything about the night because I was too afraid of what someone might tell me.
The blackouts were happening way more often, and that was probably one of the worst parts. Being at a party or a dinner, apparently having a great time, and waking up the next day with little or no memory of it. And then pretending I remembered.
Someone would mention something from the night before, and I’d laugh or go along with it as though I knew exactly what they were talking about. In reality, I had absolutely no recollection.
It’s a horrible feeling.
And the anxiety and shame that came with it would sometimes stay with me for days.
When I look back now, I see so many occasions that should have been wonderful memories. Weddings, birthdays, evenings with friends, parties at our house. And instead, I remember how drunk I got, or I don’t remember much of the night at all.
That’s a sad thing to admit.
I read something after I stopped drinking about keeping a “burn journal,” basically writing down the experiences you never want to repeat. The mornings you felt awful, the things you regretted, the times you weren’t the person you wanted to be.
I think there’s something to that. Not to keep beating yourself up over the past, because God knows there’s enough shame already, but because it’s so easy to forget how bad things had become. You start remembering the fun of drinking and not the aftermath.
And I think that’s where I finally got to.
The fun just wasn’t worth it anymore.
I couldn’t keep waking up feeling the way I did. I was tired of disappointing myself, tired of the anxiety, tired of wondering what had happened the night before.
I just couldn’t keep doing it.
One of the harder things I’ve come to realize since stopping is that I had a completely different perception of how much everyone else drank.
I honestly thought that when I was getting wasted, everyone else was too. That we were all drinking the same amount and having the same experience. And somehow that made it feel more acceptable to me.
But now that I’m sober and still going to dinners and parties and spending time with friends, I can see that wasn’t really the case.
Most people weren’t drinking the way I was.
It was me.
And that’s been quite difficult to come to terms with.
Because now I wonder how many times I was the person people talked about after a party. We’ve all had those conversations when someone gets really drunk, and the next day people say, “Oh my God, she was wasted.”
And I think back now and realize that was probably me more often than I would ever have wanted to believe.
There’s shame in admitting that, but there’s also something important about being able to see it for what it was rather than continuing to convince myself that everyone was doing the same thing.
Even little things around the house have made me realize how much drinking was really mine.
We have a drinks fridge, and it used to be full of beer, wine coolers, all sorts of alcohol. I always thought of it as something my partner and I stocked together.
Now I look in there, and it’s mostly sparkling water and non-alcoholic beer.
And I realize that maybe it wasn’t really both of us drinking all that alcohol. A lot of it was me.
It’s funny how stopping something can make you see your life so differently.
Another big reason I wanted to stop was my children.
I think about my daughter, who is eighteen, and my son, who is eleven, and the example I want to set for them. I don’t want them remembering their mom being drunk or seeing me in a state where I wasn’t really myself.
More importantly, I want them to feel safe with me.
I’ve thought about nights when I’d had so much to drink that I was passed out, and what would have happened if one of them had needed me. What if there had been a car accident in the middle of the night? What if there had been a fire or some other emergency?
Would I have been able to get up and help them? No.
That’s a really uncomfortable thing to ask myself as a mother.
I want them to know that I’m there, that they can call me at any hour, that I’m capable of helping them if something goes wrong.
My son has been so proud of me for stopping, more than anyone else. I think he understands that this has been a big change for me. Sometimes I don’t think other people necessarily realize how much goes into it, especially when drinking has been part of your life for so long.
But I also know that everyone is dealing with their own things, and that there are people struggling far more than I am. I don’t see my ten months as something that makes me better or stronger than anyone else. It’s simply something I’ve been trying to do for a very long time, and so far, I’ve managed to keep going.
And I hope I continue.
The other thing I’ve been thinking about is how much your relationships and your life change when you stop drinking.
Because they do.
I’m not quite the same person I was before.
When I drank, I was much more easygoing. I would go along with things, stay out longer, say yes to things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. I was more social, more spontaneous, maybe more fun in some ways.
Now I find myself questioning things more. I don’t necessarily want to go out all the time. I don’t have the same enthusiasm for sitting around for hours while everyone drinks. And sometimes I feel a bit left out.
Not because anyone is deliberately leaving me out, but because the dynamic has changed. When everyone is drinking and you’re not, you’re just not experiencing the evening in quite the same way.
And I do wonder sometimes whether people find me less fun now.
Maybe they do. I don’t really know how my partner is feeling about this change. Sometimes I think he wishes I still drank….
I can understand that because I’ve been on the other side of it. Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I remember hearing people say, “You can’t trust someone who doesn’t drink.” Drinkers don’t really want non-drinkers around watching and judging, but I don’t judge. In my case, I wish I could have a drink and that one drink would be enough, but it’s never just one. Too bad for me.
I think it’s also changed the way I see some of my friendships and even my marriage. Not necessarily in a bad way, but things are different, and I’m still trying to understand what that means.
There’s a part of me that misses how easy everything seemed when I was drinking. How simple it was to go along with whatever was happening. But then I remind myself that it wasn’t actually that simple, because I was the one waking up the next morning feeling terrible.
And I don’t miss that at all.
What I find interesting now is how much I want to be on my own.
I love being home. I love my own company. I’m genuinely happy having a quiet evening, doing my own thing, and not feeling that I have to be somewhere or be doing something.
I don’t know whether that’s because I’m getting older, because I’ve stopped drinking, or a combination of both.
But I’m enjoying it.
And I think part of it is that I’m trying to figure out who I actually am without alcohol.
That’s a strange thing to say at this stage of my life, but it’s true.
I’ve been drinking since I was a young teenager. It’s been part of almost every stage of my life, so I don’t really know what my adult life looks like without it.
What do I actually enjoy doing?
What do I want to spend my time on?
What kind of social life do I want?
Do I genuinely enjoy some of the things I used to do, or did I enjoy them because drinking was involved?
I don’t have the answers to those questions yet.
And maybe that’s why I want more time on my own. I need a bit of space to think about those things without feeling I have to immediately replace drinking with something else.
I also think there’s a lot of emotion that comes with stopping, which I hadn’t really expected.
There’s regret when I look back on certain situations. There’s embarrassment about how I behaved sometimes. There’s sadness about memories I’ve lost. And there’s also the realization that I can’t go back and change any of it.
I can only do things differently now.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling ashamed of the past, but I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen either.
It’s part of why I’m here.
People sometimes ask me if I’ve stopped drinking forever.
And my answer is usually that I don’t know. I’m just not drinking for now.
I don’t feel comfortable making a big declaration about forever. Maybe part of that is because I don’t want the pressure of having to explain myself to everyone. And maybe part of it is because I know how complicated my relationship with alcohol has been.
I’ve said before that my relationship with alcohol was so complicated that I had to break it off.
And that’s probably the best way I can describe it.
It gave me a lot of fun times over the years, or at least what I thought were fun times. But eventually it was taking more from me than it was giving me.
I think about people who are struggling with drinking, and I know how difficult it can be to even imagine life without it, particularly when it’s tied to your friendships, your culture, your social life, and your sense of who you are.
I also know that just because someone hasn’t stopped doesn’t mean they don’t want to, or that they haven’t tried. Everyone’s relationship with alcohol is different, and not everyone gets to the same place in the same way.
For me, I had reached a point where the pain had become too much.
And I think I had to recognize that for myself.
Others might have seen it long before I did. They might have worried about me or thought I was drinking too much. But until I reached that point myself, I don’t think I was really ready to change.
That’s just my experience. I know it’s not everyone’s.
Ten months later, I still think about drinking. I still miss certain parts of it. I still have moments when I wonder what it would be like to just have a drink and not have to think about any of this.
But then I remember why I stopped.
And I remember those mornings.
And I know I don’t want to go back to feeling that way.
I’m not suddenly a different person with everything figured out. I still have my struggles, my insecurities, and things about myself that I want to work on.
Stopping drinking hasn’t magically solved everything. In some ways, it’s made me look at things I probably avoided for years.
But I do feel more present. I feel more in control of my decisions. I know what happened the night before. I can wake up without that terrible anxiety hanging over me.
And those things matter to me.
I want to keep going, mainly for myself, but also for my kids. I want them to have a mum they can depend on and be proud of.
And I want to see what my life looks like without alcohol being such a big part of it.
I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet.
I’m still figuring out my friendships, my routines, what I enjoy, and even parts of who I am.
Some days that feels good, and other days it feels a little lonely.
But I think that’s okay.
I don’t want to turn these ten months into some big inspirational story, because that’s not really how it feels to me. It’s been difficult, uncomfortable at times, and also very revealing.
I know there are people quietly struggling with alcohol every day, people trying to stop, people who have stopped and started again, and people who are simply not ready or don’t know how to begin.
I understand more of that struggle now, and I certainly don’t judge anyone for where they are.
I can only speak for myself.
For me, the joy of drinking became overshadowed by the pain of drinking.
And eventually, I just didn’t want to live with that pain anymore.
So I stopped.
And ten months later, I’m still not drinking.
I’m proud of that, but I’m also very aware that I’m still figuring things out.
Maybe the biggest thing I’m learning is that I don’t need to know exactly who I am or what comes next.
For now, I’m just trying to live my life a little differently, be a better mother, be more honest with myself, and find out what makes me happy without a drink in my hand.
And for the first time in a very long time, I’m giving myself the chance to do that.
About Sunny Jean
Sunny Jean spent eighteen years climbing the corporate ladder. Then one day, she stopped to take in the view, realized she’d been climbing the wrong thing, and made a run for it. She traded boardrooms for big skies, deadlines for dirt trails, and the chase for what’s next for the joy of what’s here. Last spotted somewhere in the mountains, hugging trees, getting lost on purpose, and looking up at the stars.
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