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What I've learned after 3 years of no alcohol.
December 30, 2022. I had just gotten home from the Notre Dame vs. South Carolina bowl game in my hometown of Jacksonville, FL. The effects of a day spent drinking were catching up fast. Shortly after, I found myself hugging the toilet for hours.
It was in that exact moment…head down, body absolutely wrecked…that I knew it was over. Alcohol had run its course for me personally. I’d reached my I’ve had it moment.
The truth about that time in my life is that I’d known I needed to quit for a while. Not the casual “I should probably cut back” kind of knowing. But more of the kind that had been whispering for months and finally got loud enough that I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear it. And I think that’s one of the key ingredients to actually making a change…awareness. You have to see it clearly before you can do anything about it. But awareness alone isn’t enough. The other ingredient, the harder one, is discipline and consistency. Knowing you need to change and actually changing are two very different things.
So I stopped. Cold turkey as they say. And as I ring in another year of living without booze, I wanted to share some of what this decision has taught me. Partly for anyone circling a similar choice, but mostly as a way to memorialize what I know to be one of the most profound journeys I’ve taken as a man.
Most of my 20s and early 30s were spent using alcohol the way a lot of us do…as a regulator. A way to soften the edges of things I didn’t want to feel. The traumas, the guilt, the general low-grade unhappiness that I couldn’t quite name. Alcohol was there for all of it. It was reliable.
That’s the thing about numbing. It works. Until it doesn’t. Until you realize you’ve built an entire life around avoiding the very emotions that are trying to tell you something. Coming to grips with that…especially early on…was the hardest part for me. I had to face the fact that I’d been running from myself for years, and booze had been my preferred vehicle.
Three years later, I’m still surprised by what’s changed.
Self care actually means self care now. For someone who spends hours and hours each week training for ultramarathons, it never made sense that I’d turn around and pour alcohol into my body. From a practical standpoint, it’s about as counterintuitive as it gets if your goal is peak athletic performance. But there I was, day after day, doing exactly that. It wasn’t until I stopped that I realized just how significant an impact alcohol has on recovery. I wasn’t just training harder without booze, I was finally letting my body heal instead of making it work overtime to fight the poison I’d put inside it.
Life is hard. It’s harder with alcohol. I’ve read countless articles over the last few years about how difficult things have gotten for people financially. The cost of living is up, and the dollar isn’t stretching like it used to. But for me? My cost of living went down…significantly. And a lot of that came from stepping out of the alcohol ecosystem entirely. When I go out to eat now, I don’t add a few drinks to the bill. At the grocery store, I’m not grabbing a bottle of wine and some beer for the week. My weekends aren’t spent parked at a brewery waiting for the latest collab release. That ecosystem was expensive in ways I didn’t fully see until I left it.
I’m in control. The thing I’ve learned about alcohol over this time is what it actually does to your brain…how it suppresses the decision-making parts and leaves you vulnerable. You’ve probably seen the random drunk person at the bar stumbling or slurring words. Maybe you’ve even been that person. I know I have. That version of me wasn’t fully coherent to the world around him. He’d lost control. And going back to a place where that could happen again? I’ve just outgrown it. The older I get, the more I want to be fully present in my own life.
No headaches. Seriously. In three years, I haven’t had a single one. Every morning I wake up with a clear head, ready to operate at my best. I’m no doctor, but I imagine it has to do with swapping out a dehydrating option for water before bed. My brain actually gets to rest now instead of going to war with whatever I drank a few hours before. Better hydration, better sleep, no more headaches. Simple math I wish I’d done sooner.
Here’s what I’d tell someone who’s been circling this decision the way I did for that last year: Take the leap.
I kept telling myself this was something other people do. Not me…not the guy whose identity was wrapped up in weekend breweries drinking 8% IPAs. Me, give that up? Nah.
But what I’ve found to be true about this life is that the people willing to take risks often end up ahead of those who play it safe. Even if it doesn’t work out the way you envisioned, you still walk away with something…a better story, a clearer head, a version of yourself you didn’t know was waiting. Taking the leap and facing the uncomfortable part of change is a lesson I wish more people would lean into. The discomfort is temporary. What you find on the other side usually isn’t.
Three years in, I’ve found other outlets for the emotions I used to drink away. This blog is one of them. Running is another. The stuff I used to avoid? I face it now. Not perfectly, but more directly.
I’ve got some regrets from those years. A few “what ifs” I’ll probably always carry. But I also know that path led me to a moment where I had to decide. A moment that I think we all only get a handful of throughout our lives…to keep going and face the health consequences, the relationship strain, the slow erosion of potential…or be brave enough to fight back and face the uncomfortable part of changing.
I’m glad I chose the latter.