What I’ve Learned From a Year of Sobriety

Brian McCarthy
Aug 28, 2017 · 6 min read
Pour one out for the homie. Image credit: Antoine Wilson

In the early morning hours of August 20 2016, I found myself inebriated to the point where I felt like my brain was floating in beer. I was hysterically crying into my hands, like so many other nights before. It felt like the weight of the world was crushing me and everything was completely hopeless. After a good thirty minutes of what felt like emotional torture, a weight was lifted and suddenly I had an epiphany: I don’t have to live like this. There has to be a better way. And I am going to commit to it. Today.


Fast forward to now, August 20 2017 marks my one year anniversary abstaining from alcohol. The past 365 days have been met with a mix of challenges and important learning lessons for my personal growth. I wanted to share my experience in the hopes that anyone struggling with alcohol or substance abuse might be able to take something away from my experiences and hopefully benefit.

I’m going to talk about my past, my relationship with alcohol before even consuming it, what life was like along the way while drinking regularly, and all the unexpected challenges and learning lessons that came with abstaining completely.

To be clear, this is not an article demonizing alcohol or people who get drunk on a regular basis. Everyone’s relationship with alcohol can be different, and I am not casting judgement on anyone. This is just me sharing experiences and observations through the lens of my perspective. But if you have this quiet voice deep down inside of you questioning if its time to stop drinking, or you’re just curious what it is like for someone to struggle with substance abuse, then this is for you.


Long before the cold, crisp taste of cheap beer passed my lips, I was already well aware of the perils of alcoholism and substance abuse. I had witnessed the ugliness first hand many people don’t see or understand.

Several people in my family had substance and alcohol abuse issues. I will spare names and details to respect everyone’s privacy, but I did witness first hand at a very young age, what it was like to be deeply affected when people you love very much were under the influence.

As a child I swore to myself that I would never end up like that. I told myself repeatedly that I would never let myself get to a point where a substance would ever interfere with my relationships and loved ones. In fact, I even made a promise to myself at a young age that I was never going to touch alcohol or drugs ever in my life.

As a teenager growing up in a prominently Irish neighborhood, this was a daunting challenge. However, I actually managed to do well for quite a while. While all of my friends were drinking their first beers, I happily abstained and just hung out like everyone else. Surprisingly, I was rarely ever pressured into trying to drink or experiment with drugs. Everyone in my core group of friends were understanding, and I even had friends that were also not drinking too. But at the end of the day, I still felt out of place. I still felt uncool. I still felt like an outsider.

Sometime in late August, a little after my 16th birthday, I finally caved in. I drank. What felt like a lifetime of promises to myself went right out the window. I suddenly knew the fun and glory of being a drunken teenager.


In the beginning, it was a lot of fun. Parties, weekend trips, dorm rooms, vacations, bars were all new and exciting. Everything that was par for the course for an American-white-middle-class-teen coming into adulthood. There was always something happening and alcohol was always at the forefront if not the entire point of the outing.

But by about 25, it became less fun. I found that I was drinking mostly out of habit. Sometimes I did have fun. Other times I didn’t. As time went on, I started to see where this wasn’t really healthy for me anymore. But I also had zero interest in making a commitment to a difficult decision. I also noticed most of my life goals were going largely unrealized and I couldn’t figure out why. I always had a good excuse for why things weren’t working in my favor. It took a long time to come to grips with the truth that the problem was me. Drinking and hanging out were somehow more important than my dreams.

In my late 20s, I got married and had my first child. I told myself I would drink less, and to an extent that did happen. But when I did drink, I still went overboard. I was never happy with “just having a few”. I always wanted more. I was starting to become very conscious of the behavior and how my mind instantly started gravitating towards the consumption of alcohol as soon as I started. I knew that if I had any hope of making real change in my life, my drinking days were numbered.

In March of 2015 my life changed forever. My lifelong best friend passed away. In that first year, drinking became an unhealthy vehicle for me to cope and process feelings of grief. After that first year of his passing, I started setting up rules for myself to regulate my drinking. This worked for a while, but slowly the rules kept getting bent and broken until they were fairly unrecognizable anymore.

By spring of 2016, I told myself that after summer I was going to give up alcohol for an undetermined amount of time, if not for good.


The first few weeks were actually less challenging than I thought. I was so sick and tired of hangovers and feeling generally awful that abstaining was really easy in the beginning. Every time the prospect of drinking came up, I remembered my worst hangovers and suddenly drinking became a lot less desirable.

As time wore on, I found that social situations were really challenging for me. For a while, I just stopped going out or putting myself in a situation where alcohol was involved. It seemed easier and it worked for a while. However, that wasn’t going to be sustainable in the long term unless I was planning on being a hermit the rest of my life.

Very slowly, I started embracing those uncomfortable situations. I realized I needed to confront those uncomfortable feelings head on to truly understand the root cause of why I wanted to drink so much in the first place.

I found I was just very uncomfortable in social situations. It took a lot of work and inner reflection, but I realized I was never comfortable in my own skin, be it alone or around other people. Naturally, alcohol helped keep that anxiety at bay and avoiding those root issues while helping me fit in.

Another piece of it was just triggers and automatic behavior. “I am in a bar, therefor I drink”. Once I started paying attention to those triggers and pattern behavior, it became easier to start to reprogram myself to replace that behavior. The truth is, I’m still working on that. Undoing 15 years of programming doesn't happen overnight, or even a year. Its still going to take time.


I was always convinced that I would never be able to maintain sobriety for any extended period of time. I had tried several times before and failed miserably. I learned that not only could I do it, but that it would be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling to my self esteem. If I could tackle the biggest challenge that has plagued my adult life, then I am capable of accomplishing anything.

Will I ever drink again? I am a big believer in never saying never. But for the foreseeable future, I can’t imagine myself ever going back. My mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health has become exponentially better. Bad days aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be. Good days feel better than the good days of the past. You can’t put a price on the feeling of clarity that comes along with sobriety. So if you’re struggling, or just considering abstaining for a while, I hope you can find the will and resolve to make the leap. You might be surprised with what you find on the other side of yourself.

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Brian McCarthy

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Technologist. Artist. Author. Curator. http://BrianByDesign.co

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