sober curious
Alcohol has been a part of my life for a very long time. I remember going to my first party with alcohol when I was like 14 or 15. We went to my friends house in Mexico and all of my friends were older than me and I wanted to seem “cool” and say that I had drank before. I think all of my friends knew that it was my first time drinking but I had committed to my lie so I had to put on the performance of my life. I saw my friend pour an insane amount of Absolut vodka into my shitty plastic cup with a few splashes of grape juice. Naturally, it was so tough to drink but I had to drink it without making any faces because I had told everyone it wasn’t my first time. I would never in a million years drink something like this but hey, you live and you learn.
Somewhere along the way, drinking became my entire personality. It was always how many shots can I drink before I black out? There was a time in college when I would take a Sharpie marker everywhere I went so I could keep a live tally on my hand. It’s fine, we’re meant to be young and stupid when we’re in college. I’ll grow out of that phase, I thought.
When I moved to New York, I started working at a consulting company and we had to go through several weeks of training. At the end of a module, we would take a test and leave early to hit happy hour. Many times we wandered to the Lower East Side to start drinking in the early afternoon and find ourselves going home at 1 or 2 in the morning. I remember one time my friends and I called my mom outside of a bar and they took the phone and promised her they were taking care of me. After all, I was in a brand new city with people I had just met so she was worried… She knew me and my history with alcohol. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why we decided it was a good idea to call her in the first place. It probably ended up worrying her more, hehe. Sorry mom!
One summer, my grandparents, my mom and I went to Paris and I went out with some friends that were there. I didn’t make it home that night and she was worried sick because I didn’t call or text that I was staying out. At the time, I was so annoyed because I had been living on my own for a while and didn’t understand why she was being such a mom. Ha — sorry mom, again! Another time, I went to visit my then-best-friend in Spain. We went out, things got out of hand and I ended up fighting with my friend outside of a club. I walked away and I was SO out of it that when I wondered off I couldn’t find my way back to my friend. To make things worse, I put my phone down for literally one second, and when I went to grab it, it was gone. I was lost in the streets of Spain with no phone and no idea of where I was going. #yolo ?
I think I’ve always known that my drinking has been a problem but it’s not necessarily isolated to just drinking. I have an all or nothing personality, so I find myself doing this with anything I like or dislike. If I like something to eat, I will eat it over and over until I can’t eat it anymore. When I find a song that I like, I become obsessed with it and I listen to it until it literally can’t anymore. I have always been like that and it’s no different with drinking.
I decided to take a step away from drinking, and being an all or nothing kind of girl, I decided to quit cold turkey. My friends and I are going to play Nationals at the end of October and I’ve never won nationals so I want to make sure I’m in the best shape that I can be. And sure, I do want that but I also wanted to test myself. I had gotten into a habit of drinking all the time. Go out to dinner? Have a couple of drinks. Finish playing tennis? Go to the terrace and have a drink, or two or many. Have a rough day? Have a glass of wine. Celebrate something good? Cheers with champagne. Is it still possible for me to have a good time without drinking? My entire personality had become drinking.
I knew that I had been drinking a lot, especially when my friends came to visit and the US Open was in town. I was going out to eat and drink every single day and I had no control over it anymore. So, 27 days ago, I stopped drinking. To be honest, it wasn’t that hard after having 700 Honey Deuces at the Open and honestly, it was way easier in the beginning to not drink. I think at the time that I started it was easier because I knew that if I kept going at that pace, that it was going to turn into a big problem but now that I’ve been away from it, I know that I can very easily have 1 and walk away. However, if you know me, you know that if I set my mind to something, it’s pretty hard to change my mind. My goal was to not drink until Nationals so that’s what I’m still shooting for.
Over the past 27 days I have been expecting to wake up and feel incredible but that hasn’t been the case. The first 2 weeks, there was no virtual change. My sleep was actually very inconsistent and restless and sleep has never been something I’ve ever struggled with. I was starting to grow impatient and wondered it if it was even worth it to keep doing it. At around day 15-16, I was going up the stairs at Whitehall Station, which is where I get off for work, and there are a couple of flights of stairs to get out of there, and halfway up I realized that my knees didn’t hurt. Almost every time I went up the stairs, my knee would hurt or it would simply just give out. Since that day, I have not had that pain. Could that be from not drinking? Incredible.
Apart from less inflamed joints — and yes, I do realize that I sound like an 80 year old — there have been other benefits and surprises. We’ve had more happy hours in the past 27 days that we had since I started my new job in May. I thought there was no way that I could go and not have at least one drink but my coworkers have been so understanding and supportive, which has been really helpful. I always thought that drinking was necessary for work because a lot of bonding happens when you go out for drinks. I usually dread small talk and honestly still do, but I thought I had to have a few drinks to be able to do it. I’m still not great at it and I don’t love it but I have surprised myself over the past few weeks.
I had seen a lot of videos on TikTok about how people feel after being sobercurious for a little while and they speak about how much it helps with their mental health. I’ve always been pretty open about my mental health and that I take medication but quite frankly, over the past few months, I have not been taking my medication consistently. I can’t really explain why but I just hate that I have to take it. I will take it for a week or two and then forget one day and then just won’t take it for a couple of weeks. But the medication won’t work how it should when I’m inconsistent like that and I guess I always thought it was okay because I was fine but I realize that I had been using drinking to cope with my depression and anxiety. I don’t know if my thoughts are just clearer because I’m not drinking but I guess I have nothing to help me avoid my depression anymore. I think my depression and my drinking has been exacerbated because of many life events and significant amount of change this summer, and a lot of that change was out of my control but binge drinking is in my control and it was finally time to get ahold of it. I’m hoping that along with this dry spell, that taking my medication more consistently will help me feel better overall.
On the bright side, the best part about not drinking, is that it saves a ton of money! Not only do I buy my own drinks when I go out, I feel the need to buy drinks for other people too. And let me tell you, drinks in NYC ain’t cheap! When I go back to drinking, I will definitely try to not be as splendid with buying drinks. We’ll see how that goes… The second best thing about not drinking? Waking up without a hangover. Though drinking higher quality alcohol and less sugary mixers keeps hangovers at bay, knowing that I will 100% wake up hangover free is a nice perk.
I don’t really think it will be that hard to get to the end of the month without drinking with only one or two temptations along the way. My friends and I call my alter ego “Chicago Marnie” because that city really does bring out a crazy side of me. I think it’s because some of my closest friends live there and so I feel so comfortable there? I don’t know, but Chicago Marnie is wild. I have a trip to Chicago planned in a couple of weeks and I think that will be my biggest challenge. I haven’t really decided if I’m willing to break sobriety for that one weekend but that could be a test in itself. Realistically, I’m not planning on staying sober forever. I just wanted to know that I could do it, especially after how much I was binging, but it would mean that I wouldn’t reach my original goal of the end of October.
At first I was feeling weak for even considering drinking in Chicago but I think this is what the future will look like — a choice. If I decide to drink, it will be fine and if I decide to not, it will be too, but it will be a choice I make based on what I want to do vs just mindlessly drinking every single time I step foot outside my apartment. That’s something I really struggle with, balance. It always all in or all out and nowhere in between. So as I look to set new goals and challenges for myself, they will be centered around finding balance.
What do you think — will I make it past Chicago without drinking?
Sober curious is a social wellness movement that involves self-selecting out of alcohol consumption at times, without abstaining from drinking altogether
If you’re interested in learning more about the sober curious movement, here is a great article to start with: https://foodinstitute.com/focus/a-clear-headed-look-at-the-sober-curious-movement/
xx marn
