90 days without alcohol

Happy Sunday, Soothers. By the time you get this in your inbox, I will have spent 73 days not drinking alcohol (or coffee, or eating gluten, but those are stories for another time), on my way to 90 days without alcohol in my life.

I've written a few times in the past here about my relationship with alcohol. I've done several dry months at this point in the last few years, and those gave me a lot of clarity and understanding about how alcohol affects me.

The short story is I'm 42, and I've known for at least 6 years that my relationship with alcohol overall is... what to call it? Unhealthy? Fraught? Confusing? Dependent, even?? It's hard to say. I've never once identified as an alcoholic, or had massive negative effects in my life from my alcohol use, but at the same time, I was becoming more and more aware over the years that something about alcohol was feeling out of my control regardless.

As a highly sensitive person, I realized I was using alcohol to regulate my nervous system in times of high anxiety and times of low despair. I would use it to bring my anxiety down to a manageable level, especially social anxiety; I would use a drink for a dopamine hit when I was feeling low and or bored or lonely, as something for relief or to look forward to.

I was using alcohol not just for nervous system regulation, but also emotional regulation — or really, emotional suppression. Alcohol would help me numb out or distract me when difficult emotions like grief or despair or anger came up.

I also in the past few years realized I suffer from PMDD, and reading more about alcohol's (and coffee's) effect from a hormonal level on my menstrual cycle really got me more interested in the hormonal health benefits of not drinking alcohol, especially as I prepare for menopause in the next few years.

Mostly, I had to realize, all the things I preach to my clients as a life coach and teacher — nervous system regulation, emotional processing, self-care — I wasn't living those fully because of the way I used alcohol. And that wasn't in congruence or alignment, and I needed to change that.

So, after spending a big chunk of the summer in rural Indiana where the drinking culture is pretty strong, I decided fall would be the time. I would take 90 days off alcohol (and coffee and gluten too) starting September 1st.

I wanted to do 90 days because I wanted to expand past the 30 days I've done before, and also because I was curious to see the compounding effects on my cycle, that I don't think you can get in 30 days.

So what happened? I'll share more in an upcoming podcast with Jillian Anthony of Cruel Summer Book Club. She and I have talked about our relationship with alcohol before on her podcast, and she recently completed over 6 months sober (which she talks about here). So subscribe to the Sunday Soother podcast to hear more.

But today I wanted more to share the tools that supported me through these nearly-90 days, because I think a lot of the more conventional tools out there — including sheer willpower — aren't as effective as some of the tools I ended up using.

Here we go!

1. I read Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Drinking in the month before I stopped. This book is weird, I can't explain how it works. It is like a readable hypnosis. Making the case over and over again with the same language for how alcohol isn't working in your life, something about the repetition, the points he makes, has an effective effect on your subconscious. I still had a couple of weeks of drinking after reading this book, but I think it helped prime me, so to say, for the 90 days off. I would re-read it if I decided to do another 30 or 90 days off booze.

2. I used hypnosis and affirmations in this process. In particular, I used affirmations I created around sobriety in my ThinkUp app each night as I fell asleep; other nights I would use the Quit Drinking hypnosis from Andrew Johnson's app.

3. When cravings would arise, I would turn to EFT tapping. There are tons of EFT videos on YouTube for fomo around drinking or cravings. These really helped. Sometimes I would do them in the middle of a craving; sometimes I would just do them in the morning preventatively.

4. I had done several 30 days off alcohol periods beforehand. If you've never done 30 days, I would start with 3-7 days. Then a month or two later I would do 1-2 weeks. Then I would build up to a month. Take your time with this. Nowhere do I see people fail more at goals when they set a massive goal for which they have no foundational support; they inevitably get disappointed in themselves and fall right back into the shame and self-sabotage cycle. Try really small periods of not drinking first, and let this build over months or years. My first 30 days sober was probably like 3 years ago, and I couldn't have done 90 days at all without several of those under my belt.

5. I announced that I was doing this publicly on my podcast and my Instagram. That very public accountability definitely helped me.

6. Anytime I've done something like this, I have started thinking about doing it a month or two ahead of time. I knew by mid-July I would probably do 90 days off these substances starting September 1st. It helped my brain and nervous system get used to the idea in stages. Pick a starting point that feels natural to you (start of the year, start of a month) and have it be a month or two out from when you make the decision.

7. It simply became part of my identity. I say comfortably now, "I don't drink coffee" and "I don't eat gluten." I know I will never engage with those two substances again. Since I do plan to return to alcohol in a mindful way, I didn't say, "I don't drink" but I did say, "I'm not drinking right now." I just fully owned it. In previous efforts I would apologize or over-explain or qualify these things. This time, I just said what was true: These substances are no longer part of my life, or are not a part of my life right now.

8. I relied heavily on substitutions, which are so widely available these days. Thank god for non-alcoholic beverages and mocktails. Athletic Brewing's non-gluten fake beer in particular was super helpful.

9. I learned, nobody gives a shit. I went to three weddings sober (something I probably have NEVER done since I was a kid) and a ton of parties in this period. Nobody cared. I ordered seltzer water at the open bars. Nobody cared. I brought my own non-alcoholic beer to drink. Nobody cared. And I'll tell you, there is nothing like watching people get wasted at events like weddings or big parties, while you are sober, to really nail home how fucking strange our society's relationship with alcohol is. Binge drinking is fine and encouraged. Getting so drunk you black out is the norm. Celebrating a couple's union by not remembering it or being obliterated or doing embarrassing things you would never do sober is totally fine. And accepting how awful you feel the next day (or days!) afterwards; we just stand for that as a normal consequence. And I get it; I have been there, at dozens of weddings and social events like that myself. But, yeesh. Yeesh!! WHY does our society let this type of substance consumption stand as a norm?? It's BIZARRE.

So what's next for me and alcohol? I'm not totally sure. I do worry I will slip back into old patterns, so I would like a structure to adhere by. I do well with firm rules. I'm thinking 1-2 drinks on date night, and 2 "spare" drinks to use throughout the week if I feel called. I heard somebody on a podcast recently say he only allows himself to drink 4 drinks total a week, over two days — and then only on days he's moved his body. He also added that he takes an entire week off from alcohol each month, which I liked too. I will continue to rely on non-alcoholic drinks and just make them a routine part of my life. I will volunteer as the DD as often as needed as it helps me stick to my promises and self.

Overall, the biggest shift that happened for me was that moving off alcohol for three months wasn't about self-deprivation; it was about self-trust and self-respect.

What about you? Where does your relationship with alcohol stand these days? What tactics or approaches have you used if you've decided to shift your relationship with alcohol or not drink at all? I'd love to hear.