For the first few years after I quit drinking, I called myself sober.
It fit.
I had been drinking nearly two bottles of wine a night.
By myself.
Every night.
For over a year.
This wasn’t a casual relationship with alcohol that had gotten slightly out of hand. Alcohol had become part of the architecture of my life.
My reward.
My off switch.
My coping mechanism.
My routine.
My companion.
My problem.
I don’t have a dramatic rock bottom story.
No DUI.
No lost job.
No intervention.
No mugshot.
I was still running businesses, raising kids, showing up for my life, and paying my bills.
From the outside I looked highly functional.
From the inside I was exhausted and anxious and disconnected from myself.
And spending an incredible amount of energy managing my relationship with alcohol.
So yes.
Sober fit.
But somewhere along the way, another word started fitting too.
Alcohol-free.
Not because I was minimizing what alcohol had become in my life.
Not because I was embarrassed by the word sober.
And certainly not because my drinking “wasn’t that bad.”
It was bad enough that I knew I needed to stop.
The difference wasn’t my past.
The difference was my present.
Because sobriety and alcohol-free started to feel different in my mind and in my body.
Sobriety felt like something I had to protect.
Alcohol-free feels like something I get to enjoy.
In the beginning, not drinking felt fragile.
Serious.
Something I could lose.
Something I had to guard carefully.
There were first vacations.
First holidays.
First patios.
First fish fries.
First stressful weeks.
First celebrations.
First bad days.
Everything felt like a test I had to pass.
I wasn’t building an alcohol-free life yet.
I was protecting my sobriety.
Then, something shifted.
I stopped counting the days, then the months and now I only measure by years.
I started noticing everything I had gained.
Better sleep.
Steadier moods.
Less anxiety.
More energy.
Mornings I actually remembered and enjoyed.
The ability to drive anywhere at any time.
The absence of hangxiety.
The freedom of not spending mental energy negotiating with myself.
Should I have one?
Two?
Am I drinking too much?
Can people tell?
Will I feel terrible tomorrow?
Will I remember this conversation?
The math disappeared.
The negotiations disappeared.
The constant noise disappeared.
At some point, not drinking stopped feeling like deprivation and started feeling like a life upgrade.
One felt like guarding the door.
The other feels like walking through it.
I don’t spend any time wishing I could drink anymore.
Ever.
I genuinely prefer this life.
I prefer my orgasmic sleep.
I prefer peace.
I prefer waking up clear-headed.
I prefer not organizing my evenings around a substance that was taking far more than it was giving.
Some of you might be wondering how long that took.
How long before not drinking stopped feeling like something I had to manage and started feeling like something I genuinely preferred.
For me?
About 100 days.
Interestingly, that’s around the timeframe many people in recovery talk about as the ‘magic day’.
The fog lifts a little.
The routines start to feel normal.
Your brain starts learning new pathways.
But honestly, I think the timeline is different for everyone.
And I think part of it is a choice.
Not the choice to stop drinking.
That’s hard enough.
The choice to stop romanticizing what you’re leaving behind.
The choice to stop treating alcohol like the ex-boyfriend you secretly hope texts you someday.
The choice to stop viewing an alcohol-free life as a punishment.
At some point I stopped asking:
“When do I get to drink again?”
And started asking:
“How good can this get if I fully lean into it?”
That changed everything.
My decision-making muscle has always been stronger than most.
Once I decide something is no longer aligned with the life I want, I tend to stop negotiating with myself about it.
I quit arguing for the old life.
I started building the new one.
And it turns out there was far more waiting for me on this side than I ever imagined.
That said, I remember reading things like this in the beginning of my sobriety and being absolutely furious.
Not inspired.
Not hopeful.
Pissed.
Because I was convinced these people had no idea what they were talking about.
They didn’t understand how ingrained alcohol was in my life.
In my routines.
In my friendships.
In my celebrations.
In my stress relief.
In my identity.
And they definitely didn’t understand Wisconsin.
Fish fries.
Patios.
Football games.
Bonfires.
Golf outings.
Wine with girlfriends.
Beer in coolers.
Old Fashioneds at supper clubs.
Alcohol wasn’t an event.
It was the soundtrack quietly playing in the background of almost everything.
I especially hated the phrase:
“If I can do it, you can do it.”
I still don’t like it.
Because I was right.
Those people didn’t know my life.
They didn’t know my circumstances.
They didn’t know what I was carrying.
They didn’t know why I drank.
They didn’t know what I was afraid would happen if I stopped.
And I don’t sit here pretending to know yours.
Maybe alcohol is a mild annoyance in your life.
Maybe it’s quietly becoming a bigger problem than you want to admit.
Maybe it’s the thing holding your anxiety in place.
Maybe it’s your favorite part of the day.
Maybe it’s all of those things at once.
I don’t know.
What I do know is that I spent years believing my life without alcohol would feel smaller.
More restricted.
Less fun.
Less social.
Less me.
For me, I was wrong.
Not because someone on the internet told me I would be.
Not because somebody promised me that if I just held on long enough everything would magically become easy.
Because I lived it long enough to find out for myself.
The woman drinking two bottles of wine alone every night needed sobriety.
The woman waking up rested, writing essays, drinking coffee in the morning light, and moving through the world without that constant low hum of anxiety lives an alcohol-free life.
Turns out both women are me.
Sobriety got me here.
Alcohol-free is where I live now.
Curious what life might look like without alcohol?
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