Breaking up with booze

The long and sloppy goodbye

A story in three parts feat. Pixie Woo and Victoria Secret

This summer I will be two years off booze. I had to stop drinking because I became terribly, terribly intolerant to it. Even two drinks would destroy me the next day, so I cut my losses and packed it in. It’s a pretty big change to have made in my life, and I’ve been spending a lot of this year trying to figure out if the changes feel more significant because:

1. My post-Covid social life is just different now

2. I’m turning 37 this year and maybe this is what 37 feels like

3. Perhaps I’ve stacked up so many enemies over the years that my phone just rings less often now

None of those things are nice ideas to contend with, and I am so sorry if you’ve woken up on a bank holiday Monday feeling worse for wear and I’ve just landed some existential fear on your doorstop. But tl;dr: Things are quieter in my life but I am healthier. I would prefer if there was slightly more ruckus to my life but I’m trying to assess if that’s just me chasing my youthful and wily past.

As much as I used to be a drinker, I used to also be a person who never listened to podcasts. I figured that everybody needed to get over themselves, says she who charges you to read my words on a weekly basis, but now I see the worth of some podcasts. In the last month, two of those podcasts touched on some interesting points about drinking and sobriety, and they helped me to put some shape onto my relationship with both drinking and sobriety.

So as most people that I know - particularly women - are considering different versions of sobriety, and people are curious about it in general, I thought I’d divulge how I got to this point, and how I’d like to claw back to the social life I once had without needing to drink again.