Issue #07: Why I’ve decided to stop drinking

(Mostly.)

Happy Friday eve! I’m excited — and honestly, quite nervous — to share this ultra-personal essay with you. If someone forwarded it to you, head here to learn more about who we are and what we write about.

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I recently spent four nights, three days in Monaco, a place known for glamour, gambling, and above all, a great party — and I didn’t drink a drop. 

I’ve flirted with sobriety, or a version of it, for nearly as long as I’ve been legal. Sometimes I’d take a month or two off from drinking when my clothes started to feel a little tight; swapping a cocktail for Diet Coke was easier for me than virtually any other lifestyle change (or addressing my complex relationship with my body, which I’ll get to in a future issue).

During the start of the pandemic, I didn’t drink for nearly half a year: I’d never been a big at-home drinker, and I didn’t want to start during what was arguably the most scary and isolated time of my life yet. 

Whenever I stopped drinking, I always assumed I’d go back to it eventually. Until this year, I have. 

This change hasn’t made immediate sense to my friends and family, because I don’t look like an obvious candidate for quitting. When I drink, my style is an aggressive start that quickly tapers off, like a runner who’s hot out of the gate and then falls behind. At a certain point, I lose all interest in continuing to drink and will abandon half-full glasses or fob off shots. 

And though I’ve never experienced anyone’s hangovers but my own, they seem relatively mild: a light headache, some bleariness, a certain remove from the world around me. Nothing a nap and Advil can’t cure.

The experience of drinking itself? Oh, it’s glorious. I love the feeling of my body and brain uncoiling after the first few sips, the laughter that easily rises up around a group when everyone’s got a drink in front of them, the acidic taste of wine and comforting yeastiness of beer. 

So… why stop or even slow down?

The set point theory of happiness posits that every person has an inherent position on the emotional spectrum: from happy-go-lucky to severely depressed. It’s biological, and the genetic roll of the dice determines where you land. 

But this position isn’t fixed, and you’re not powerless. Through lifestyle and individual choices, you can move your happiness in either direction. If you find meaningful relationships, exercise regularly, and take antidepressants, you could go from the 50th percentile — neither happier nor sadder than the typical person — to the 80th. If you neglect your health, isolate yourself from other people, and ghost your therapist, you could slide down to the 20th.

I believe my set point is left of center: unhappier than average. For years, I’ve been working to push myself in the other direction through all those variables I just mentioned. But I can’t remember a period of my adult life where I’ve consistently been happy. 

The realization alcohol was a major culprit took me a long, long time to come to. I would have nine drinks spread over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and, like clockwork, feel sad, anxious, and unsettled Sunday through Wednesday. Then I’d have a quiet weekend — one dinner, a total of two drinks — and feel relatively upbeat and optimistic come Monday. 

Finally, it clicked. 

Drinks with friends

There’s a lot of research showing my experience is not unique. 

Alcohol works on Gaba — the main brain receptor responsible for nerves talking to each other — which, in layperson’s terms, chills you out. It also inhibits the neurotransmitter glutamate. According to neuropsychopharmacology professor David Nutt: “More glutamate means more anxiety. Less glutamate means less anxiety.”

As we probably all know first-hand, while you’re drinking you feel excellent: loose, uninhibited, and confident. 

However, your brain doesn’t immediately return to baseline once the alcohol is out of your system. For the next day or so, Gaba function is still impaired and glutamate is up, leading to a fun little anxiety surge. Starting to drink again will make you feel good, but you’re living on borrowed time, and eventually the hangxiety will hit even harder than before. 

This was my cycle. For a lot of people, it’s a very bearable one, but I don’t have happiness to spare. 

So I decided to stop. Or mostly. 

She’s pretty, and zero proof

Hana Elson is an influencer around my age who coined “damp lifestyle,” an approach to drinking that’s a notch above total abstinence and several notches below drinking as usual. 

She’s the model I’ve been looking for: the person who never “hit rock bottom” to decide traditional drinking wasn’t working for her but doesn’t want or need to abandon it completely. Hana’s version of damp is one or two drinks during a night out instead of six; my working definition is “weddings and big birthdays.” That brings me from hundreds of drinks during an average year to somewhere south of 20. 

People often worry about losing themselves when they stop drinking. I was terrified.

It took a few dry dinners and parties to realize my essential self wasn’t dependent on a buzz — on the contrary, I felt funnier and easier to talk to when I wasn’t self-conscious of jumbling my words or forgetting a tidbit the other person had told me three minutes earlier. 

Day trip to Villefranche, sans the Aperol Spritzes

In Monaco, I mentally counted off the drinks I would’ve had if I’d been drinking. Aperol Spritzes during a day trip to a lovely seaside town in the Côte d’Azur. Mimosas with fresh orange juice by the pool. Peronis with lunch, wine with dinner, gin and tonics at the casino. Sometimes the cravings were easy to dismiss; other times, they struck hard and fierce, and to stop myself from ordering a drink, I had to project myself into the future. 

I pictured my happiness balances ticking down, down, down into the red. 

So instead: “I’ll have a lemonade, please.” “Sparkling water with a splash of pineapple juice.” “A non-alcoholic beer.”

I’m writing this in Boston. We landed last night. I’m jet-lagged and a little nervous about everything I need to catch up on at work. But — and I’m saying this tentatively — I feel pretty happy. 

love, Aja