I’ve been sober on and off for the past 18 months or so. From June or July 2023 to the end of 2023 I was completely sober. I started drinking again in March or April of this year, but the amount that I drink is significantly lower than in previous years. I recently decided that I will stop drinking again until at least the end of the year. I’ve been learning a lot about myself and my relationship to alcohol over the past year and a half. Moreover, I’ve been learning a lot about what I want my relationship to alcohol to look like.

I started drinking alcohol when I was 15 or 16 when I spent a year living in Portugal. I loved it! My school friends and I would have these parties where we would eat tons of food and drink cervejão, which is basically 7-up mixed with whatever garbage lager the restaurant had on hand (usually Super Bock). We would all get very drunk and stumble home with a warm feeling in our bellies and minds. Later that year my host brother and I would find ourselves at the local Pingo Doce (a supermarket chain in Portugal) buying box wine and mixing it with off-brand Red Bull and Sprite. We’d go to some under-18 party at the local club and have a tuna of a time. Given that we were so young and I was so American, drinking alcohol felt really cool to me; it made me feel very mature and fed into my 16-year old sense that I was cooler than my American classmates back home. I always got the sense that we were a little too young to be drinking back then (even by Portuguese) standards, so it had a bit of a subversive quality to it – we were doing something that our parents and teachers didn’t quite approve of.

In college my friends and I drank a lot. Nearly every Thursday afternoon we would schlep huge amounts of alcohol back to our dorms. We would always joke that no matter how much we bought, we would drink almost all of it by the time Sunday morning rolled around. I drank a lot of very cheap Indian spirits back then1. As a freshmen I remember busting out three Ikea mugs and polishing off an entire bottle of gin with two friends, as a pregame. For me, buying and drinking alcohol while in university was such a rush. We weren’t allowed to drink on campus, and we weren’t supposed to be able to buy alcohol in the first place. Every time we went to one of the city’s many booze stores we were doing something that we weren’t supposed to be doing and it was completely exhilarating. For the most part, we had a really good time drinking. University was very intense for all of us and that was reflected in how we partied. We listened to loud, shitty top 40 remixes, danced until our feet hurt, and delighted in conversation that slid effortlessly from the intellectual to the benign to the aspirational to the downright silly. This was really the peak of my relationship with alcohol – it facilitated some truly transcendent experiences between my friends and me. Even hangovers weren’t that bad – I remember countless spontaneous food adventures that started as giddy excursions into the unknown ultimately ending up with everyone staring vacantly off into the distance. The important bit is that we could celebrate and commiserate together.

Things started to change after I left university. I found myself in places where alcohol was not only social acceptable, but expected. More importantly, I was on my own. From the end of university until last year my relationship with alcohol deteriorated to the point where I didn’t want to drink it anymore. It’s not that I was drinking too much (in fact, I was drinking far far less than in university) its that it was not longer fun. In New York City or Melbourne alcohol isn’t a thrill, it’s entirely mundane and completely ubiquitous. I also found myself in many novel social circumstances where I wasn’t really having a good time. It could be that I was exhausted from working or exercising, or that I wasn’t willing to make enough of an effort with the people around me; regardless I wasn’t enjoying myself and the alcohol only exacerbated the situation.

It has taken me a really long time to internalize the fact that alcohol does not in itself make a good time. It might enhance certain aspects of an already good time, but it cannot produce joy on its own. In reality, alcohol only serves to intensify whatever experience I’m having in a given moment. If I’m at a party and not really enjoying myself, alcohol will make me feel like a bumbling fool incapable of stringing two words together. If I’m tired and feeling like leaving, alcohol will only serve to make me more sleepy. However, if I’m having fun conversations or dancing, alcohol gives me the illusion of reducing social anxiety or loosening up my joints for a good boogie. The reason drinking was so much fun in college was because I was surrounded my some of my best friends in the whole world in an environment where we didn’t have to worry about getting up for work or paying rent.

Hangovers have also gotten worse over the course of my twenties. The physical symptoms are roughly the same – bad headache, bloating and nausea if I’ve been drinking a lot. What’s gotten worse are the emotional and psychological after-effects. I often find myself excessively anxious or sad for days after a night of drinking. The anxiety in particular has often been debilitating – I can’t enjoy myself when seeing friends but my mind spirals out of control when I’m left alone. This increased emotional dysregulation seems to mirror the increased anxiety and self-loathing that I’ve experienced as I’ve gotten older. I think the alcohol-induced emotional rollercoaster that I found myself riding for the better part of my twenties contributed to my general emotional and psychological problems.

Recognizing the toll alcohol was taking on me physically and emotionally, and also understanding that it was a mood intensifier, not a source of joy made me start to wonder if I could live without it. In June of 2023 I decided to stop drinking all together. It was a revelation. I’m not saying my anxiety of self-love problems went away, but I did find them much easier to manage. I also found that I had so much more time for the things that are actually important to me in my life, like spending time with loved ones, working, or doing some hobby2.

Partying was, and still is, sort of weird when sober. I’ve found ways to enjoy going out while sober, but it still requires more work. In Berlin I’ve found that people aren’t too nosy or weird about it, but it still feels like it deserves an explanation. Once you stop drinking you realize how completely ubiquitous and taken-for-granted it is here. Generally I find that a non-alcoholic beer (of which there are many good ones in Germany) allows me to effectively cos-play as a haram-bro but nonetheless it still invites a conversation.

Looking back, I’m actually not entirely certain why I started drinking again. Maybe I got a little tired of the extra work I felt I was putting in to stay sober in a drinking world. Maybe I was feeling generally good and felt that some ice cold beers would amplify that feeling. Other than when I was in Japan earlier this year, I find that I’m not really enjoying drinking anymore, even as I’m doing it. I don’t like that it makes me feel sluggish and bloated, and I don’t like that it will often give me a headache if I’m not careful about drinking on an empty stomach. I don’t like the number of bike rides I haven’t taken as a result of hangovers. I don’t like the number of beautiful moments I’ve missed with loved ones because of hang-xiety. I don’t like how easy it is to normalize alcohol consumption in my life – to go from drinking once in a while to every weekend. For now, I’m going to stop drinking until the end of the year.

I don’t think I’ll be sober for the rest of my life, but I think I’d like to reserve it more for special occasions. Instead of drinking every weekend, I’d like to drink with loved ones every two months or so as part of a celebration. I’d like to be very deliberate about my consumption, saving it for moments when I know it will augment an already enjoyable experience.

  1. Old Monk, anyone? What about Officer’s Choice Blue? Or Silver Anchor Gin? ↩

  2. I do lots of cycling, unicycling, and dabble in knife sharpening and learning German. ↩