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I stopped drinking alcohol on November 10th 2020 after my first (and only) panic attack led to me question what the fuck I was doing with my life. I took a few weeks to think about what might have caused me to throw a wobbly and, as a side-effect, I havenât wanted to drink since then.
It wasnât a conscious decision I made, I just stopped wanting to get drunk, but in hindsight â I didnât like the way I behaved drunk anymore, I thought the bad stuff alcohol was responsible for in my life far outweighed any good it had ever done me, and I dreaded the thought of behaving the same way for the rest of my life. Thatâs probably enough to call it a day.
I felt like shit for the first 6 months after stopping. Alcohol was the only coping mechanism I had for stress, the only social lubricant I had to make being in groups of people tolerable, the only thing I had in common with most of my friends, and subsequently the only thing I had looked forward to.
Alcohol is a huge part of the culture I grew up in and it serves as the fuel for almost all social engagements. Weekends are exclusively for drinking and holidays are for drinking even more. Itâs hard to adjust to not taking part in it. I had fuck all to enjoy for a while and a creeping suspicion that I might never be happy or relaxed ever again. Being around it sober only made it clearer that it wasnât a way of life that I wanted for myself anymore.
After 18 months I felt better. The sense of growing pressure that comes from not having a weekend blowout to look forward to eased off and left me feeling more emotionally steady than I ever had before. At the time of writing itâs been over three years since I stopped. My mood is very consistent now â I have barely any unprovoked ups-and-downs. Any bad moods are much easier to cope with because everything else in my head stays consistent. I have a much clearer idea of who I am, how I want to behave, and reassurance that I will continue to feel and behave the same way because Iâm not planning on deliberately altering my mental state any time soon.
I feel anxiety more now than I did before stopping (probably because I donât drink to alleviate the anxiety that I also had previously, so now I have to actually suffer it). Itâs mostly in busy social settings around new people, but thatâs getting better with time too.