WRITTEN BY LILAC
Why I don’t drink alcohol anymore
I used to think I had to drink to fit in
Some people, who perhaps with a lack of empathy or understanding this story at face value only — ask me why I didn’t stop sooner when it was not good for me.
“Why did it take you so long to stop when you were obviously allergic?”
See, I didn’t know it was an allergy at the time. I thought it was just a lack of “training”. I thought it was that my so-called “drink tolerance” was not built up yet, and I had to keep going in order to make it better.
Now in hindsight, writing this, of course, the easy assumption would be to cast quick judgement and say “you should have just stopped”. Easier said than done. There was cognitive dissonance and rationalizing at play.
There’s also moving out of entire networks and friend circles, and those happen over years. So as you go along my story, keep in mind to have an empathetic view point on why this took me so…
