Why I stopped drinking alcohol (more or less).

The First Splendid Truth holds that to think about happiness, we must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

On Friday, I posted about some ways to get rid of “feeling bad.”

It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought to mention a step that I successfully made to eliminate a source of “feeling bad” in my life – quitting drinking.

Alcohol started making me “feel bad” after the Big Girl was born. I was never a big drinker, but in college and afterward I drank about the same as most people. I never loved drinking, but I enjoyed it.

When I was pregnant, I stopped drinking altogether. After the Big Girl was born, and I started having the occasional glass of wine or beer again, I had ZERO tolerance. A half a glass of wine hit me hard.

And not for the better.

Alcohol affects me in several ways. It never really makes me friendly and jolly, as it does many people. First, I become belligerent. I have a tendency to be argumentative anyway, strengthened by going to law school, and alcohol makes me spoil for a fight. And that’s not a fun way to interact with people.

It also makes me less discreet. I say things that I wouldn’t ordinarily say, I’m less tactful, I’m more gossipy.

After these charming effects have worked on me for a while, I then become tremendously sleepy – uncontrollable yawning, pure misery.

These effects were more noticeable in situations when I wasn’t with close friend, but rather was with people I didn’t know well, or didn’t particularly like, or doing something that I didn’t particularly enjoy. Which, of course, were situations where it was all the more important that I be friendly and polite.

What made me focus on the “bad feelings” was the way I often felt the next day. I’d feel anxious and remorseful. “Was I really as obnoxious as I think?” I’d ask the Big Man, trying to get his reassurance that my bellicosity and my indiscretion were all in my mind.

And it wasn’t as though my bad feelings were outweighed by my enjoyment of alcohol. Fact was, I didn’t really enjoy it that much. I can’t tell a good wine from a mediocre wine. I’ve never been able to drink hard liquor. And I’ve always begrudged alcohol the calories it contains, which I’d enjoy more in the form of dessert.

Finally, it hit me – this wasn’t a happy situation. Drinking was fun for other people, but it wasn’t fun for me. I’d rather skip the drink, and skip the remorse, and save the calories.

I’m not saying this solution would work for other people. I enjoy other people’s enjoyment of drinking (unless they talk about fine wine too much). I like the festiveness of martinis and champagne. I like the zestful enthusiasm some people have for drinking--while working on Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill, I vicariously enjoyed Churchill’s love for liquor—though, actually, he drank less than most people think.

But it’s one of the most important Secrets of Adulthood (see left column): Just because something is fun for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s fun for me—and vice versa.

I’m happier now that I drink less and behave better. I get home after an evening out, and I’m not eaten up with regret and worry about the way I acted. I feel fine, instead of being so tired that I can hardly take out my contacts. For me, it’s much more fun NOT to drink than to drink.

I could have solved my problem in the opposite way. If I’d started drinking more, my tolerance would have risen, and my behavior would probably have improved. For me, it was easier to skip the drinking than to increase the drinking.

I still have a little wine sometimes, or some champagne at a celebration, or a beer. I drink as much as I like—but I don’t like to drink much, now that I realize that it doesn’t agree with me.

Sometime I regret the fact that I drink so little. Why am I so abstemious and cramped and cheerless? Other people are enjoying themselves so much.

But then I remember—it isn’t fun for me.

The striking fact about my deciding to stop drinking alcohol is that it took me so long to have the idea to do it. Why is it so hard to “Be Gretchen”? Why was it so hard for me to notice that I wasn’t enjoying myself? It can be very difficult to notice what seem to be very obvious facts about your very own self.

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Via a site I just discovered, The Optimized Life, I've become intrigued with What Should I Read Next? On this site, you enter the name of a book you love, and the site kicks up suggestions of what you should read next. I entered a few favorites to see what I thought of the recommendations, and from what I could judge, they were pretty good. I'm always trying to figure out good reading suggestions, so this is a real find for me.

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Comments

[Dale Cruse]

This is an interest and honest look into your life, Gretchen. In fact, I linked to it from my weblog at http://www.DrinksAreOnMe.net.

[Lori]

Fantastic blog! Thanks for sharing so much of yourself. And thank you for the book link. I'm heading over there right now to see what I should be reading next. :o)

[Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk]

I don't drink partly because I don't have much tolerance for it, either, but also because it doesn't take much for me to be naturally high. I've never understood the idea that people who don't drink don't have as much fun.

[Jonas Cronfeld]

I stopped getting drunk too, as a part of my personal growth, when I was about 16. Here in Denmark you can buy and drink alcohol from the age of 15, but most start a bit earlier and never stops. Luckily a much older friend of mine made me realise how stupid is it (he was about 45 at the time), for a lot of reasons, and ever since I've only drunk a beer or two a month :-)

[Pippa]

Bellicosity ~ now that's a nice word! Sounds much more hoppy-skippy than you would associate with its meaning. :)

Gretchen, I agree it is often hard to recognize things which really make us feel bad, especially when the effects are a little delayed. But once we DO recognize them, wow, that gives us power, doesn't it! And nonono, it has nothing to do with being cramped and cheerless ~ it is all about the beauty of knowing yourself and caring for yourself.

I have a half-glass limit before wine knocks me over. I am also gluten intolerant and I have only today realized that my approach to alcohol is the same as my approach to all the gluten goodies I don't eat. Just smelling cake, pasta, pizza or especially bread ~ and I mean really smelling it, closing your eyes and inhaling its wonderful fragrance ~ satisfies me as deeply as if I had eaten it. Same with wine. I love red wine, but not its effects. Just a sip or two, truly focusing on it, is all I need.

And then I am happy both ways: I enjoyed it to the max, and I stayed pure to my boundaries of being. That is such a wonderfully free, light feeling to carry within...

Thanks so much for sharing your insights!
Love & Light,
Pippa

[Jessica]

Gretchen,
Thank you for this post. I have recently been thinking a lot about the role of alcohol in my life as well. I followed your advice a few days and wrote down the things that make me "feel bad." One of them was feeling the slightest bit hung over. Now, I have a bit of tolerance, and I've figured out that I can have two glasses of wine (with dinner) and not feel hungover. I do enjoy wine, so I think I am going to experiment with making this my limit for the next few months. It's important to be honest about what's fun and what's worth our time! Thank you for sharing your experience.

[Heather at Grace303]

I am so excited to try the What to Read Next website. What a great idea. I also enjoyed your post about your decision to stop or reduce drinking. I think this is a very good point, i.e. that you need to figure out these things about yourself and not continue doing activities merely because other people might enjoy them.

[Sharyn]

I think a lot of the problem with it taking so long (if ever) for many people to come to the "drinkings not for me" realization is because of how hard society makes it to accept the concept. You can absolutely be a fun, intelligent, sophisticated, un-uptight person even if you never drink a bit. If people do need to drink in order to loosen up or be fun, they need to look at why it takes drinking to achieve that. On the other hand, if drinking negatively affects your personality - like you seem to feel - then refraining from drinking sounds like a very smart decision.
Don't regret not being "able" to have fun while drinking. People are rarely having as much fun as we build it up in our minds that they are.
I don't know much, but I know it's good to know yourself.

[Karryn]

Thank you for this. The comment about the beauty of self-knowledge is what tipped the scale for me. I always thought I *should* appreicate fine wine, but in truth, I don't. I have recently quit, wait for it....sugar. This is a challenge but well worth it. It all comes down to how one feels at the end of the day. After all, whose body is it?

[barbara]

Thanks for posting about why you quit drinking. Sounds good to me.

I looked at "what should I read next" and cringed. Having more suggestions on what to read would just not be a good thing.

"Happiness will prevail!!!"

[Patsy Terrell]

Few people are having as much fun drinking as they think they are. They don't realize it because they're drunk. :) It's the rare person who can drink very much and maintain a high level of interesting conversation.

[kathylynn]

Thanks for writing such an honest article. There is so much truth to what you write. An occasional drink here and there is fine but when it starts affecting your life in a negative way, it's time to stop.

[Ben]

Hello Gretchen,

Thanks for the honesty about your views on drinking.

If you are interested in developing yourself and leading a happier life, seriously consider totally giving up drinking. I used to drink a fair amount in my younger days. I have also seen first hand the damage that drinking can do to bodies and minds. I reached a stage in my life, during my mid-twenties where I turned my back on the bottle. Soon after I started to become interested in self-development after reading the Steven Covey books. Giving up drinking has given me mental clarity over the past decade and a half. I probably drink once or twice a year and I hate the sluggish feelings I have the next two to three days.

Patsy is on the money by saying that few people are having as much fun as they think they are when they are drinking. I used to work in a nightclub in my younger days (pre mid twenties) and I rarely saw any happy drunks. I saw plenty of anger and unhappiness, and there was nothing quite like cleaning up vomit twenty to forty times a night to lead to moderating my drinking.

[jen]

thanks for writing this..I feel the same way as you