Spontaneously Sober

From gray area drinking to sober curious and now alcohol free.

My relationship with alcohol started in my high school years. It accelerated during college and took a few breaks for pregnancy and post-partum. The drinking picked back up just in time for mommy wine culture. I have t-shirts, cups and coozies with cute little quips about how important wine is for my mental health. How convenient, just when I need validation for my gray area drinking, along comes the alcohol industry with merchandise.

Common sightings

Let’s back up and also clarify, I am not here to shame people who drink. My purpose is to share my experience in an accessible format for those who might be sober curious. Or for people who can’t understand how or why I would quit drinking.

Let’s knock out some terminology:

Sober Curious: getting curious about your alcohol consumption. The idea is to question the personal and societal reasons why you drink rather than mindlessly sipping.

Gray Area Drinking: space somewhere between social and destructive drinking.

Mom Wine Culture: marketing targeted towards moms, specifically as a means of coping with child-rearing, house cleaning and upkeep and their own work.

Alcohol Free: choosing to live without alcohol

Ok, back to me. So yeah, I quit drinking 3 months ago. I had been evaluating my drinking for a while. I started drinking less alcohol with decreased frequency and started following #sobercurious and #grayareadrinking on instagram for the last two years. My first sober lit was

https://a.co/d/ev65Ihs

My goodreads say I marked this as “read” on 12/21/2021. I had been worried about my drinking habits for a long time. Asking myself, “is this normal? How come I am drinking so much more than everyone else? When can I get a refill?” I planned my life around alcohol. If I went out on Thursday night, I arranged for an easy morning on Friday. Many times I joked, I need a babysitter for the hangover, not the night out! I found myself really hungover about 3 months ago, struggling to get out of bed and take Theodore to school. I thought, this is it. I can’t do this anymore. At that moment I hadn’t decided I was done drinking all together but I knew something had changed. This is what they call “spontaneously sober.” Because days turned into weeks and weeks into months. I had previously armed myself with a plethora of quit lit and sober influencers. I was a step ahead thanks to my curiosity a few years ago. From my previous research, I knew to immerse myself in content that would validate my feelings and teach me a few coping strategies along the way. The positive effects from an alcohol free lifestyle far outweighed any cravings. I also credit Mounjaro(as previously discussed on my movement post) for the assistance in decreased cravings. Lots of new research surrounding decreased cravings associated with these weight loss drugs. Semaglutide and Tirzepatide reduce alcohol consumption in individuals with obesity

If you had told me 2 years ago I was going to quit drinking without a goal or plan, I wouldn’t have believed you. I wanted to keep drinking, I couldn’t visualize myself in social situations without a drink in my hand. What about the holidays coming up? What about the birthday party where the night ends in Karaoke? No more wine, EVER?

How long this will last, I’m not sure. For right now, I am alcohol free and loving it. When I think about having one glass of wine I think, why? You know you will want another, and then another. Better just to skip it all together. Some people in the sober community say moderating is harder than actually quitting. I find that to be true for myself.

Am I an alcoholic? I’m not sure and it doesn’t matter. I’m not working the steps because it doesn’t seem necessary for me right now. I’m early on in my sobriety and I know who I can reach out to if I need support. I’ll admit, the couple of days leading up to Christmas were really hard. The hardest it’s been since quitting. I was really stressed out and needed something to help my anxiety. I spent time thinking about what it would look like if I drank, how I would feel during and after. Ultimately, I did some yoga and sat in the sauna. It helped. The craving went away but my anxiety was still there. Sitting with the discomfort is a reoccurring theme in the meditation/yoga and spiritual healing world. Yoga has been a very helpful tool for me. Humans were not created to be pain free.

Sit with he pain until it passes, and you will be calmer for the next one. Naval Ravikant

When visiting with family someone asked me why I quit drinking. I started to say, “One morning I woke up with a terrible hangover…”, Theodore finished and said, “and she didn’t want to take me to school!” I had never shared that in front of him before and it was a bit shocking how much he absorbed from that morning. He understood what was happening and connected that moment with my decision to stop drinking. It is incredibly embarrassing. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident, only less frequent in recent years. I have a lot shame when I look back at my time spent drinking. Time wasted with my relationships, body and mind.

I am so proud of myself for choosing my mental and physical health over the easy fix as prescribed by our society. I feel so much better and all the things they say are true… full benefits and explanations linked

Better-Looking Skin

One outer body place where you’ll notice the negative effects of alcohol on your body is your skin. For example, drinking alcohol can cause:⁶

• Broken capillaries on the face and nose

• Dry skin due to dehydration

• Inflammation

• Jaundice (with chronic, long-term use)

• Reduced collagen levels, resulting in loose, saggy skin

When you stop drinking, your skin gets more elastic and the redness and discoloration on your face will slowly fade.

Weight Management

Alcohol robs your body of nutrients and derails your metabolism.⁷ Alcoholic beverages are a source of added sugar and empty calories. Binge drinking can lead to consuming an extra 600 calories or more in a day. 

Better Nutrition

Drinking alcohol can make it harder to stay nourished.⁷ Sometimes, people with alcohol use disorder “drink” meals instead of having nutritious meals. So, they’re not getting the carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals their body needs to function. 

Alcohol can also affect digestion, storage, utilization, and excretion of nutrients. That’s why it’s common for people who use alcohol to be malnourished.⁹

Improved Immunity

Alcohol makes it harder for your body’s immune system to make enough white blood cells to fight off germs and bacteria.¹⁰ People who have been drinking a lot of alcohol for a long time tend to get frequent infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis because their immune system has been worn down. 

When you quit drinking, you’ll probably notice that the colds, flu, and other illnesses you always seem to catch happen less often. When you do get sick, you’ll probably feel like you recover more easily when you’re sober.

Lower Cancer Risk

Alcohol is a cancer-causing substance (carcinogen). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the more alcohol you drink, the higher your risk of developing certain types of cancer, including:¹¹

• Breast cancer

• Colon and rectal cancer

• Esophageal cancer

• Laryngeal cancer

• Liver cancer

• Oral cancer

• Throat cancer

Reduced Heart Disease Risk

People who drink heavily are about twice as likely to have a cardiovascular event within 24 hours than people who do not drink at all. If you look out a longer time, people who drink are six times more likely to have a cardiovascular event within a week compared to people who don’t drink.¹³

Mental Health Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Volpicelli says that some of the negative effects of alcohol on mental health can be reversed if you stop drinking. 

For example, research shows that people will see their stress levels, relationships, work performance, and self-confidence get better when they get sober.¹⁹

"These improvements can be observed not only in people who abstain from alcohol but in people who reduce heavy drinking," Volpicelli says.

Improved Sleep

Alcohol use and poor sleep are closely linked because alcohol messes with your sleep-wake cycle. For one, drinking alcohol makes falling and staying asleep much harder.²⁰Alcohol also relaxes the muscles in your throat, so you’re more likely to have problems like snoring or disorders like sleep apnea. 

Cognitive Benefits of Quitting Alcohol

Your brain is sort of between your body and mind, so you'll see a lot of benefits of quitting alcohol here as well. You may notice that you have better memory and can think more clearly after you stop drinking alcohol. 

Heavy drinking can actually cause the part of the brain that’s critical to memory and learning (hippocampus), to shrink.²²

Quitting alcohol and abstaining for several months to a year gives your brain a chance to try to recover.

"While for some people these structural changes are not reversible, most people are able to show less shrinkage in one to three months with alcohol abstinence," says Volpicelli.

When you stop drinking, it can also reverse the negative effects alcohol has had on your cognitive functions like problem-solving, memory, and attention.²³

full benefits and explanations linked

That was a lot, I know. The benefits most apparent in my life are cognitive clarity, memory improvement, more engaged socially and the most glorious early morning coffee moments. And I’m sure as hell not missing a morning workout.

I wish I knew then what I know now. I don’t need to drink to have fun or to help numb my anxiety. Anxiety is gonna be there regardless and I have plenty of fun sober.

I feel less self-conscious because I am in full control of my faculties. I don’t need to worry about what I might say or do in a less inhibited state. I don’t have to do a review of my night the next morning with hangxiety.

Hangxiety: Heavy drinking produces physiological changes in the brain. When you’re drinking, there’s an influx of the GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid), which causes you to feel relaxed and calm. When you stop drinking, you have withdrawal symptoms. Your body gets used to that crutch to feel calm. Take it away and anxiety often follows. Add interrupted sleep to the mix, which often happens when people drink to excess, and feelings of depression and anxiety can get even worse. definition

Are you ready for a dry January? I recommend having tools ready and available. Bring your own non-alcoholic drinks to any social events. Follow sober influencers and read some quit lit. Lots of podcasts to pick from as well. A few of my to-be-read quit lit…

There is not a one size fits all approach to drinking or sobriety. A persons chemistry and family history plays into how it manifests. Becoming aware of how I felt about the amount of alcohol I was drinking was my first step. I have the pandemic to thank for my spiral into “rock bottom”. One bottle of wine per night, several times a week and sometimes breaking into a second bottle was not it. I felt like shit and I knew I needed to slow down. It took me all of two years to completely stop.

The sober movement is having a moment. There are dry bars popping up all over the place(haven’t seen any in the midwest). Lots of non-alcoholic brands being developed. Beware of adaptogens and other additives in these drinks. Read the labels and know what you are ingesting. I prefer to make my own drinks. Club soda, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice with rosemary infused simple syrup is my latest creation. You might be surprised who wants to try a sip!

Famous sober celebrities:

Adele

Tom Holland

Blake Lively

Chrissy Tiegen

Kate Moss

Zack Efron

Brad Pitt

Lana Del Rey

Calvin Harris

Daniele Radcliffe

Bradley Cooper

Kyle Richards

Jessica Simpson

Well, thanks for reading. This has been a lot to digest and share. Please comment below with any resources that might be helpful for anyone considering a sober lifestyle.