Have you ever noticed that all the joyful people in stock photos are drinking?
Dear Sober Abbi is a millennial’s celebration of sobriety beginning in 2016. As of this post, Abbi is 98 days alcohol-free. She’ll answer your questions about navigating social settings, crises, and pretty much anything else if you comment below.
Q: Why would you ever choose to give up alcohol?
A: Let me preface this answer by giving some background on myself. I’m a 22 years old young professional with an affinity for cheap wines (literally, the cheaper the better). I wouldn’t say I’ve ever had a drinking problem, but I definitely consumed alcohol on a regular basis during college. Then, transitioning into a full-time job last June, I started to understand why people go for night caps. Even when I was looking up images for this post, the “sober” keyword pops up with about 100 pictures of people looking sad.
I’ve gotten this question from almost everyone I tell.
“Seriously, though – why would you ever want to do that?”
“Um… I’m not friends with quitters.”
“Like, completely alcohol-free?”
“Can you still drink margaritas?”
I gave up alcohol starting January 1, because I wanted to have a New Year’s Resolution. I had seen all the articles that people have written that are titled crazy things like, “I Gave Up Drinking And I Lost 100 Pounds” or “I Gave Up Drinking For A Year And I Became The World’s Most Toned Human Being” – and I thought, ‘Oh. That’d be cool if it actually worked.’ Let me spoil the plot for you really quickly – not the case.
But, once I started getting further into it, the more I found I didn’t really care whether or not I was drinking. I thought it’d be harder. Weird, right? My body felt a little better, I never had to worry about my BAC, I never had to worry about hangovers, and it just so happened that I started losing a little weight. Wins all around.
Q: So, are you going to drink ever again? When does it end?
A: I ask myself this a lot, actually. In fact, there have been a few times when a boy’s offered to buy me a drink and I’ve thought, ‘Hey. How long AM I doing this for? Is this where it ends?’ But, as you can probably tell by this post, I’ve hung on strongly to my no-drinking policy. To answer your question, though, I am going to drink again. My current goal is 6 months, but I also have to figure out whether my yearly summer beach trip is going to involve a winery tour or a daiquiri on the sand. I can’t be unrealistic, you know.
Questions on the docket for next time:
“What do you do at bars?”
“How do you stay accountable?”
“What do you do if you’ve had a horrible, no good, very awful day?”
“How do you buy someone a drink?”
Stick around.
Keep Reading:
- 10 Mocktail Recipes You’ll Crave
- Alcohol and Weight Loss: A Toast to Moderation
- 10 Nutrition Myths: Debunked
from Simmer and Boil http://ift.tt/1qMJ8Pc via Continued
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