There will be no adult nog in my Christmas cup this year.
Not that this is unusual, because eggnog? Blech.
But neither will there be a glass of spicy shiraz, fizzy Champagne or rich dark stout sliding through my veins come the holidays or on the eve of a better new year we’re all collectively hoping for. Nay. Somehow, back in the summer of ’20 (how I wish I could say ’02 or something equally and delightedly old-fashioned here) I quietly let alcohol exit stage right.
Today marks 112 days pinot noir-free. The only liquid filling my wine glass these days is kombucha, which serves as a nice replacement during that time of day I might otherwise have pulled the cork out of a bottle.
A new nightly ritual has emerged in this boozy breakup: me chicken-scratching out one more day of clean living on a piece of white scrap paper pinned to my fridge by a Uintah Pet Emergency magnet. I make my mark before bed while my other nightly ritual pops away. (Popcorn, remember? I’m revealing my secrets this year, apparently.)
There was some hesitation to regale you with this new adventure. Part of me suspects what you might be thinking. It’s not pretty, right? Perhaps you’re now imagining me riddled with lawyer bills after multiple DUIs, or a home life in shambles, with a tangled web of wrecked relationships and lost jobs in my wake. Again, nay.
At the risk of sounding defensive, I didn’t have a problem with adult beverages. I’ve never been somebody who couldn’t stop once she started. And over the past decade or so, one drink was all I could handle at a time.
So why am I on my dry journey? Because I finally decided to listen to the soft voice of my body and my soul. She’s been in there, down deep in my marrow, whispering her wish to me for quite some time. And finally, on some warm, bright day this summer, I surrendered. And I am so happy I did.
This also makes me quite certain other susurrations linger inside me, and it’s my job to listen deeply. No doubt there are other ways to make this fleshy animal container come even more alive. Because not drinking alcohol does make me feel more alive. How could it not? When I imagine the three months worth of alcohol that I could have dumped into my delicate insides, and the work my liver and other organs would have done to process the neurotoxic (as in poisonous to my nerve tissues) ethanol, I shudder. In my most quiet moments, I can hear her breathe a sigh of relief.
It reminds me of beloved poet Mary Oliver’s well-known “Wild Geese,” in which she writes: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
And friends? My body did not love alcohol. Not even a little. (But really, whose does?) Why did I continue to put something in my body that made it feel less than good, without fail? If another liquid or food made me feel the same way, I would immediately ban it, so why not do the same with alcohol?
For too many years now, even a few sips takes me from a hum to stalling out. The ironically named spirits reliably suck my spirit dry, leaving me tired, cloudy and, frankly, crabby. The latter is how a former boyfriend (who also got alcohol-crabby) and I arrived at a few of our accumulating fights in the last year of our floundering relationship.
This is also why I felt a burst of elation upon unexpectedly discovering someone I liked as more than a friend was in the middle of a yearlong alcohol sabbatical. Early dating is all too often clouded by the haze of drinking, when too many glasses of red can lead to decisions and relationships you would never have chosen in the clear light of a sober mind.
So here I am. My sleep is deeper. I’m present in my life. Even when it’s painful, I’m here for it. I’m not judging anybody’s drinking habits, especially this year, which was, perhaps, an odd time to give up the tipple. But when you know, you know.
I thought it might be harder to break the habit, but these days I rarely even think about it. There was that one day, though, about a week in, when I found myself walking on autopilot after a workout toward the neon-lit liquor store next to my gym. It took some self-discipline to turn myself around and leave. And through the first few weeks, there was admittedly some mild discomfort at the thought of not having something to look forward to at the end of the day. But that has disappeared.
I have no end game here. In typical fashion, I began with no plan. No six-month or one-year goal. Given the way it feels, though, I can see a lifetime of riding this wagon. And whenever a drink does sound like a welcome idea, I recall how it feels in my body and the urge quickly scatters. Plus, it feels awfully good every night to etch out another notch on the proverbial bedpost.
So for anybody else who is hearing the same soft wish of their body, I offer you encouragement. Go day-by-day, give yourself lots of gold stars and find something fizzy, delicious and booze-free to wash it all down.
Contact the writer: 636-0270
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