Why I STOPPED DRINKING

I drank alcohol for almost eleven years before I made the choice to quit based on what I know to be true: alcohol does not serve the goals I have or the health (both physical and mental) that I want.

For eleven years, I was the kind of drinker who tried to outdrink my anxiety to “take the edge off,” who loved a hot toddy on a chilly day and a chilled glass of wine on a warm evening, who felt like she needed to get drunk if she was going to have to call an Uber anyways, who preferred getting ready with a get-ready-drink, who felt like she needed to finish a bottle of wine in the next couple days if she was going to open it, who drank to get drunk and who never really thought enough was enough, who loved drunk snacks at night and big, comfort food meals when hungover, and who came back from every trip with crippling airport panic attacks.

I quit drinking at 28 years old because I have ambitious, often physically demanding goals, that are made 10x harder by days-long hangovers. I quit drinking because when I think about who I want to be, it does not include the version of me that loses days of focus to one night of too many martinis. It does not include the person who cannot drink without getting severe anxiety and panicking the next day about what I might have done or said…. or for literally no reason at all, just for the affects that alcohol has on the brain and body.

I don’t promise to never have a sip of alcohol again. But I have made a promise to myself to remove alcohol from my life completely for the foreseeable future in order to be the things that alcohol, and its effects, are standing in the way of.