On Why I Don’t Drink

My relationship with booze has played out as follows…

• 0-15 years old – never drank. Had a sip of my Dad’s Rum and Diet one time, and never wanted a taste again (or so I thought!)
• 16-17 years old – was introduced to beer when playing MarioKart with stolen Coronas after a parents New Years Eve party. Bunch of us 16 year olds, drinking in a basement, safely and responsibly. And while this was a highlight, I never actively craved it. Shortly after, we began regularly playing ‘King’s Cup‘ at a friends house while drinking Malibu and Cokes. In hindsight… I think the parents were trying to responsibly introduce us to booze, and it was once again a safe and fun environment.
• 18 years years old – this is when I really started binge drinking. My older friends went to University of Delaware, and while I was a senior in High School I would visit them on the weekends and really started to get in to drinking. I remember having a really hard time drinking Brunette’s Vodka and Milwaukee’s Best (BEAST!), but sticking through it and teaching myself to deal with the taste.
• 19-22 years old – COLLEGE! I was a ring-leader, joining a frat, drinking myself into oblivion. Luckily, I was a good drunk and didn’t really want to picks fights, pee in closets and none of that mess (for the most-part, my drunk alter-ego is just a sleepy and hungry one; pretty harmless to society!). I never smoked, drinking was my vice and I did a good job keeping my drinking limited during the week, especially my first two years of college.
• 23-29 years old – Bachelor Life! Moved to Philly, and every weekend was drinking-focused. In college, I still had hockey and other distractions, but post-college drinking was really the focus. Going to a Flyers game? Smuggle in some whiskey. Playing soccer? Let’s bring some beers and hit the happy hour after. I never let this bleed into being a bad employee, I still worked hard and was very motivated, so I never saw it as a problem (after all, we even had beer and Jager on tap in the office!). Everyone was doing it! I was very into craft beer, and even brewed my own beer a few times a year.
• 30-36 years old – Get married, have a kid, have another kid… have one more kid. “The bars” was no longer a thing, and the drinking was mostly taken place in the home. I began to realize that craft beer, and beer in general, didn’t do things I liked to my stomach, so I began drinking more whiskey and wine. At worst, I was splitting a bottle of wine every night with maybe 6-8 drinks/night on the weekends.

And here we are now… I’m 36 years old and about 50 days into not drinking, which is also the longest streak I’ve went through since I was 18 years old. This is also somewhat notable to me, realizing I have spent half my life not drinking and then half my life drinking heavily. As you read above, I wasn’t an alcoholic. “An alcoholic was someone who has a problem, and has to find another drink. That’s not me! Maybe a functional alcoholic, but I’m doing well in my career, got married, had kids… no problem here!”. Or that’s what I told myself, and many others do too I’m sure.

I can’t point my finger at the one point where I decided not to drink. It was more of a “straw that broke the camels’ back” type moment rather than a “he really hit rock bottom and was told my the doctor he has to stop drinking or his liver will fail” type moment. So in no particular order, I’ll try to recall what specifically lead me to this moment and why I’m done drinking indefinitely.

Envy – I always envied those who cut booze out of their lives. Probably because I felt a bit captive to it! I didn’t particular love the taste, and in general I don’t like being in positions where I had to have something, where I felt captive to it. While I could “stop at any time” I did still feel that I had to indulge on a societal level. “People who don’t drink have a problem” is the norm, and instead of feeling that way, I always had a feeling of envy when I heard someone wasn’t drinking.

A Close Friend – a close friend of mine successfully quit booze. Did so for a few years, reintroduced it for a little while, and then realized it wasn’t for him. Up to this point, I really thought the only way to quit drinking would have some type of “moment”. The wife threatens to leave them, the doctor encourages them to stop, etc. The “tipping point” is fascinating to me, and I believed that not too many people would just choose to not drink anymore. Being a close friend, I would like to believe if he had a big moment like that he would tell me, so since no news of that was shared with me I believe he just chose to not drink anymore, and if he can do that so can I!

No Longer Required – there was certain a time in my life where if I didn’t drink it would have social ramifications. My go-to first-date move was go to the bar and have a few drinks. And in the wild world of advertising, it was common to hit the happy hour after work. But now I’m in my 30’s, with young children and no social life. Being a drinker is no longer a requirement.

Who Cares What Other People Think – I know this quote is miss-attributed, but the saying goes…

When you’re 20, You care what everyone thinks. When you’re 30, You stop caring what everyone thinks. When you’re 40, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place

This is how I feel. Sure, there’s a societal stigma with not drinking, and I just don’t care what you think anymore. You can think I have a problem, or you can think I’m no longer fun, but truthfully you’re probably not even thinking about me at all.

Focus on Health – Year over year, I have paid more and more attention to my health. Maybe it’s getting old, maybe it was COVID, but in the last 5 years I have really taken to running, and working hard to lose weight and feel good about myself. This year I have aggressive goals, and the first few months of the year I didn’t hit my goals. I was working hard, running more than I have ever ran in Jan/Feb, and still, weight isn’t coming off. “Something needs to change! I need to make an adjustment” and the answer was so obviously in front of me. I so badly didn’t want to give up drinking, it was very much associated with my identity, but my identity is also being an athlete, and I was at an impasse where I couldn’t be both simultaneously in a way that achieves my goals.

Recapturing the Early Mornings – even after a wine or two, 5am can be rough. But it doesn’t have to be, and with my free time become more and more scarce with more and more needy bodies in the picture, I needed to find ways to make the most of my days. Getting up early and going for a run was something I always saw a benefit from… when I did it… which was practically never. I’m a heavy sleeper, and a very convincing negotiator, so sleeping 5am Dave was wildly successful at convincing myself to stay in the bed when what I really wanted to achieve was an early morning run to kick-off my day. Said another way, drinking is borrowing happiness from tomorrow, and the happiness I received in the moment was less than the happiness I was borrowing the next day. In college, it certainly had a higher ROI but for this phase of my life it’s a pretty garbage ROI.

Brainwashing – Now I see it ever where! The billboards, the TV commercials, the social events. So much in our society directly revolved around drinking. If you don’t do it, there must be something wrong with you. If you’re going to do something fun, you should bring some booze to make it more fun. I got completely red pill’ed by it. I could not see it all before my eyes, and how we’re really pawns in Big Booze’s agenda. Reminded me of cigarettes, where everyone is silently wishing they could quit, and how it’s no longer as enjoyable as it used to me, but we keep going through the motions because everyone does it. I wanted off the ride.

The Alcohol Experiment – Recommended by that same friend mentioned above, he passed this along which really codified my beliefs. Matter of fact, much of this post is probably in lock-step with the way that book is written. It poses to encourage individuals to stop drinking for 30 days to see how they feel. To be observant, and really understand what alcohol gave them, and how they feel without it. It’s very observation-based, not sales-y, and scientific. Oftentimes with books, they have to reach you at the right time, and this book could not have been delivered to me at a better time!

30 Day Spells & Failed Experiments – Unspecific to the book above, once/year for about 5 years I would kick out drinking for 30 days at a time (in reality, probably 20-25 days. I think I only made it to 30 once). The purpose was to make sure I wasn’t developing a problem and proving such! While I could mostly do it, the feeling very much was to GET TO THE 30 DAY MARK! There was a clear finish line that I was trying to get to, and the goal was to go back to drinking (unlike the Alcohol Experiment above). To taste it and enjoy it. To not drink during the week and to make it a enjoyable experience. To drink water between drinks so I’m staying hydrated and not overdoing it. But then the creep sets in… “Pool is open (on a monday), let’s have a drink!” | “Oh shoot, I forgot to do water between that last drink.” | “Well of course I’m going to drink at the Eagles Tailgate!”. After failed experiment after failed experiment, I was getting frustrated, but maintaining the belief that I don’t have a problem. However, the signs were there. I wasn’t able to have a few without having a few more. And while I wasn’t blacking out or missing work, I was still letting it interfere with what I wanted to be reality (losing weight). That might not be a massive problem but it was a problem.

• As a quick aside, I looked gooooood! I could see it in my face, in one specific family portrait when I wasn’t drinking, and I was amazed at how refreshed I had looked.

Chasing the Dragon – Drinking in your teenage years was FUN! You’re flirting, people are being silly, booze is novel and new. That shit really worked! But after 18 years of consistent drinking, like most things it really loses it’s luster. You have to drink more and more in order to get a certain level of drunk, and still that “drunk” feeling really just doesn’t hit the same. So maybe you try to drink more (chasing the dragon) or maybe you just settle in to the casual 2 glasses on wine/night. But in either event, it just wasn’t the same as it used to be no matter how badly I wanted it so.

Family Man – What message does this send to my children? I still remember the first time I had a sip of my Dad’s Rum & Diet, and these kids are like sponges soaking everything up. What message does it send if I drink? Or prioritize drinking? And conversely, what message will it send if I don’t drink? Will they view that positively, as a virtue? Can it be a life lesson? It’s hard for me to see where me not drinking leads them down a worse path.

Cannabis – And in comes legalization! Up until about 35 years old, I could probably count on one hand how may times I had actually been high. It wasn’t the vice for me, drinking was! When I did get high, I always got a bit anxious and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience… But I began to open my mind a bit more, and began introducing myself to it. Why? It seemed healthier than drinking. A lot of the stigma of it has been dispelled. And while I don’t like smoking, I could just take a gummy. I could then use this as a crutch to move off booze.

So all-of-the-above? There were a lot of reasons for the change, but ultimately it didn’t happen over night. This is something I have struggled with for years now. How can I control my drinking better? Can I try this? Maybe that? 2 steps forward, 1 step back, and another step back… My focus was on continuing to improve and grow, and I’m happy I was able to be honest enough with myself to realize I can’t show restraint and I should find a better plan. Maybe at one point I will change my mind, but for now I am sober and I have no deadline on that to expire.

Thus far, I feel really good! I haven’t developed any Superpowers like I had hoped, but I think I’m about 20% happier. The weight is coming off, I feel more clear headed, less emotional and reactive, and once again, I like the way I look! I probably feel a bit of smugness but revealing that I’m not drinking, and I’m not sure it’s the way it is received but I do feel it deep down. After all, I admired those who could quit drinking and now I was one of them! And I apologize to you as you read this, but yes, there is a bit of me that does feel a bit superior by being able to still have fun and not be reliant on a substance (don’t worry, I don’t feel far superior to you, and I know this foolish logic, but it helps me stay motivated by feeling a bit holier than even if it isn’t true!).

Still haven’t peaked!