A Year Without Alcohol

On the 18th of April 2016, I decided to give up alcohol for an entire year. Working in the media industry is not for the faint hearted or the weak stomached, especially when it comes to entertaining ourselves! Every party is a showdown of shooters and over indulgence is mistaken for “taking a break from it all”. Over and above the work events, my social life was also busy and I realised that a large portion of society is under the impression that the only way to have fun is to down as many shooters as possible in a single night.

I found that instead of enjoying my nights out, I was left with debilitating hangovers (and it’s true, they really do get worse with age), and my anxiety levels were steadily increasing. The next two days after a party left me useless to society and to myself. I would sentence myself to the couch, binge watch TV, eat junk food and rely on anti-anxiety meds to bring me out of a state of irrational fear. The amount of “entertainment” was not worth the amount of suffering and I had to make a change, soon.

It was after 2 consecutive nights of partying that I finally reached breaking point. I was a mess and my nerves were shot. I had toyed with the idea of a dry month for a while at that point, but decided that if I really wanted to experience true change, a month wasn’t going to cut it.

Now, for those who know me well, I am constantly coming up with ideas, sharing grand plans and talking a good talk, but execution isn’t my strongest point. However, there are those unicorn moments that leave my peers astounded when I take a massive and fearless leap towards something seemingly out of reach, and then execute!

This was one of those moments.

I announced it immediately to all my colleagues, knowing that if I didn’t publicise this decision soon, it would fall into the same bucket of all the “what I was going to do” items I’ve collected over years. Once I told my team mates, I declared it where it matters most… on Facebook. Now it was real.

​*and the crowd gasped*

It was official. No alcohol for 365 days. Almost everyone responded with scepticism and confusion, I mean, a whole year?! I had absolutely no doubt that I would accomplish this task, in fact I was really looking forward to it. I imagined waking up after a night out and feeling totally capable of carrying out my day with a clear head and normal energy levels. I knew this was a good decision.

Now I know that most people would see this as an insurmountable task, but because I was so focussed on the benefits, when the first event popped up, I wasn’t tempted in the slightest bit. I was excited when I left because I knew that I was going to sleep well and wake up feeling 100% okay — and I did. I secretly relished in my compos mentis state as my friends were struggling the following day. As they moaned and searched for a “cure”, I happily carried on with my day as I would any other. The feeling was extremely rewarding.

I’ll share more about what I learned about this experience in a separate post, but I would like to leave you with this as food for thought. As I mentioned, the most common responses I got from people when they found out about this challenge was:

1. I could never give it up for a whole year, maybe a month but even that would be hard.
2. Why?!

Here’s my 2 cents:

1. If your focus remains on what you would be giving up (depriving yourself of) instead of what you would gain, you’re highly likely fall short of accomplishing the goal. I guess the same could be said of saving money.
2. Why not??

Lasting thoughts

By declaring my decision publicly, I made myself accountable to others. I couldn’t sway from the course at the slightest temptation because then I would have failed in front of an audience. The real challenge starts now. I am accountable to myself now, and since we are masters of self-negotiation, my challenge is to ignore the devil on my shoulder and stay focussed on the greater rewards.