diary of a 20 something

I’m three days away from an entire month without alcohol.

This year, I decided to do Dry January. On a whim actually. Though I think the reasons have become more concrete over the passing weeks.

On New Year’s Eve I had a glass of wine, got a little headache, and that’s when I decided to go 31 days alcohol-free.

If you don’t know what Dry January is, it’s a global health challenge that started in the UK that has gained significant popularity in the past few years. On social media, my feed is flooded with videos about creating mocktails with “functional benefits”.

But before I explore my relationship with alcohol, there is something important that I don’t want to ignore.

Alcohol is a class one carcinogen. It is proven, just like cigarettes, to cause cancer. There are no safe levels of consumption. From a drop to a gallon, there is always risk, it just increases with what you consume.

I would consider myself to be somewhat of a conscious drinker. My parents met in Alcoholics Anonymous so I’ve always been aware of my family history.

But when I went to college, I didn’t care about my family history very much. I just wanted to fit in. I have endured some brutal hangovers and “I’m never drinking again” moments over the years. And it has taken time for the binge-drinking college spirit to wear off.

Once I started to settle into adult life and Jake moved to Columbus, we would have wine most weeks, sharing a bottle over dinner. We did wine tastings every month. I felt mature. This was way classier than college me.

Over time I realized that it was fun, but it didn’t make me feel great. The wine headaches come with a vengeance.

Now, we don’t drink when it’s just the two of us. We traded wine for San Pellegrino, taking the alcohol out of our everyday relationship has made us closer.

During this month, it hasn’t been that weird to go without. I even celebrated my friend’s birthday over the weekend and got three mocktails as we bar-hopped.

Today my sister, Jillian, called me. We chatted about the weekend and her race training she was doing. “I saw the video you posted on Snapchat. You looked drunk,” she laughed.

“That’s funny because I braved that club stone cold sober,” I told her.

Being sober means having fun. Bring the energy. Abstaining from alcohol doesn’t always have to mean isolating yourself. Sometimes it just means choosing an alternative.

And I say that knowing it’s true for me, but not for everyone. For some, staying away from that environment is the only way to hang on to sobriety. And to those people, I am proud of you, doing what’s best for you.

So here are some of the reasons that became clear to me with each week of this month:

I wanted to prove to myself, no matter what came up this month, I have the power to say no. And I think this is a good practice for my life, one that I’m still learning.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a Snapchat memory, where I relived the worst hangover of my life on video. I definitely felt different from the girl in the videos.

Nothing in the world is worth feeling that way. Nothing is worth missing a day being sick visiting my long-distance friend. I was grateful watching those videos to be waking up without a hangover.

So no hangovers, that’s a win to me.

After this month is over, will I drink again? Probably.

But I think, more than ever, there will be intention behind it. I’m still learning, still growing, and still creating a relationship with alcohol that feels safe and good to me. And that’s a start.