The last time I had a beer was 2014, and I didn’t even finish it. I stopped drinking it after maybe four sips. I can still remember the odd heavy feeling the bottle had when I went to the bathroom, poured it out in the sink, and chucked it into the recycling. For me, that was the beginning of an up and down journey over the subsequent four years to maintain sobriety. A significant portion of that journey has taken place at Connecticut College, the past two and a half years to be exact. Although, it’s not as if I got to Conn after making this decision and chose to completely remove myself from social situations in which drinking was present. In that way, my life has not actually changed that much. I am a sociable, outgoing person who likes to make people laugh, and so I gravitated towards other people like that as I always have. I didn’t want my decision not to consume alcohol to dictate everything about my life at college. I didn’t want to think anything had that much power over the people I chose to spend time with, and the events I chose to attend.
My friends on the whole have been extremely supportive and in an important way never pressed the issue unless I brought it up to them at at a time when I was struggling. There are plenty of times when I feel very obviously left out, but that’s my choice, and not the decision of others to actively exclude me from anything. It’s something that I don’t always love but it’s a part of college life that I am used to, and pretty soon a part that I won’t miss too much. I’ve also become a master of the Irish exit. There have been plenty of times in my college career and young adult life when I walk into a party and decide immediately that nobody in that room is on my wavelength or in a comparable state of mind. As much as I love sweaty people bumping into me, spilling drinks on my shoes, and then repeatedly asking me why I don’t drink and insisting that we had a class together or that they love me all of a sudden, it can be hard to “get on their level” so to speak. On the plus side, sometimes it’s nice to be at parties and breathe a huge sigh of relief, watching people interact with one another in absurd, embarrassing ways knowing there’s no way I can be doing that, because I’m totally self aware. But then I pause for a few seconds and remember that I do that already in social situations without the excuse of being under the influence.
Stepping back from being an active participant in the party scene or drinking in general has meant ample time for me to reflect, but also inevitably given me a new perspective on alcohol. Even after four years of choosing not to drink, it’s been hard on so many occasions to truly understand my feelings around alcohol and its impact on my relationships with people close to me. To be sure though, it now annoys me when I think about how much of my social life used to revolve around alcohol or gaining access to it, and I now feel hyper-aware of the way its presence influences social events. I feel like I’m constantly rolling my eyes when I’m at family gatherings or with a group of friends, listening to people make a show of opening a bottle of wine, or talking about the hoppy undertones of a craft IPA that’s really just dark brown, bitter water produced by anheuser busch. But if I say something it would probably come across as crass, judgmental or bitter. Even though I so badly want to stand up and do an entire bit about how you could probably hold a glass of franzia under the nose of your most pretentious friend who would tell you it’s a hauntingly subtle red, with hints of hibiscus and gold dust. It’s funny to me, and maybe just a result of my situation wherein I’ve gotten a unique opportunity to step back from something, scrutinize it from afar, and start to develop a new outlook.
However, before I verbalize these aforementioned feelings, or roll my eyes at the dinner table, or launch into a tangential stand up routine about the arbitrariness of wine or beer tasting, I pause and ask myself some questions. If I start to resent someone for drinking is it simply because I’m jealous of their situation, while I selfishly puzzle over my own struggles and wish that I didn’t have to deal with them? Am I the only one who feels like sometimes there is a distance between myself and my friends because of it? Does it annoy me that so few people actually know why I don’t drink or maybe assume that I do? Am I bitter because I’ve had difficult relating to people about this quirk?
In a very broad sense, living life in the real world means being exposed to temptation and vices, and growth comes from the ability to step out of our comfort zones and make mistakes. Very few people can lead lives completely absent of these things, as part of being an adult is learning to live with your imperfections and practice moderation. It doesn’t mean pretending said temptations or vices don’t exist or living a life where you’re petrified of ever slipping up again and maybe disappointing someone. Taking the latter perspective can work in the short term, and maybe even lead to some measure of success, but it’s an unsustainable means of navigating a complicated and unforgiving world. Thoughts like this are what sometimes lead me to wonder if a complete cessation of drinking was the right choice for me. There were too many times in recent years when my guiding philosophy was to walk on a tightrope, ignore feelings that made me uncomfortable, and cower in fear at the possibility of disappointing myself or others, bringing anxiety, negativity and pressure. Ultimately though, I can’t say that I regret my decision, or wish I could go back to that day four and a half years ago when I was sitting in a psychologist’s office with an overwhelming sense of fear and uncertainty about what lay ahead. Regret doesn’t usually bring much progress, and in this case it would probably just lead to a never ending game of what ifs. At this point, I’d rather just make the most of the next few weeks.
