Here’s what it looked like when I tried “Moderation.”
You look pretty good on the surface most days. You go to the gym, pack your healthy lunch, put on lipstick, and remember to fill your (literal) gas tank on the way to work. It feels pretty decent, like you kinda have your shit together (really, the most accurate description I can come up with and my most-used one). And sometimes, you almost do. But there’s just… something in the way, something that holds you back, or something that throws you off track every.single.time.
That thing that makes you ignore your life. That makes you not want to get out of bed, so you snooze til the last minute. You’re barely able to get dressed some mornings. You might often call in to work sick. You screen phone calls, misplace keys and mail and wallets, eat like total crap, space out your life in favor of 18 hours of Netflix.
For me, that something was alcohol (and depression, my much older friend, run rampant with booze in my system on the almost-daily).
Running in social circles of fellow heavy drinkers, it took me years to realize how much it was hurting me and even more years to do something about it. It wasn’t always so dark and dramatic, of course. I had many stretches of time where I saw glimpses of a this-could-actually-be-my-life life; when I was hopeful, insightful, grateful, and honest. I know the pain and frustration of that rollercoaster, and with it, the inner confusion and conflict of not living authentically, nor up to my full potential.
My moderation attempts started in my 20’s.
I was usually a pretty fun drunk, but as longtime friends (and a slew of exes) can tell you, I had some unbelievably awful nights thrown in there as well. I jumped on the blackout train pretty early in my drinking career, so you just kind of never knew which version you were gonna get. Those nights never went well. I hated knowing that I hurt people I cared about. I also had a really hard time acknowledging my actions and apologizing, but a really easy time hating myself for it. Shame was my first reason for moderation. Drink less. Only beer. Only once a week. Stay out of trouble. (Don’t turn crazy and FFS, get your shit together.)
I became interested in health in my 20’s as well, but it would be years before I truly understood how drastically drinking was undermining all of my other health-related efforts. When I became a health coach at age 31, I struggled with cleanses and detoxes (even the ones I ran); usually unable to make it without a drink for an entire week, or white-knuckling it for 7 full days before practically double-fisting at go-time, as if I’d been dying of literal thirst for months.
Moderation worked for me, until it didn’t, and then I’d start again.
I was on the hamster wheel of trying to control my drinking for most of my adult life until I got sober. I started keeping a gratitude journal in 2010. For the next 5 years, more than half of my “gratitude” entries would be about either trying to control my drinking, trying to lose weight, quit smoking, or quit purging (“7/28/10 back on track w cigs and drinks; yesterday was rough,” “8/8/12 1 day sober,” 6/10/13 mood OK despite lots of drinking yesterday.”). I have a written record of 5 years of failed moderation, plus all the years prior. Know what that tells me?
I never got there.
I just spent years trying so hard to keep something in my life that was literally poisoning myself and my relationships. Some months, years even, were better than others, depending on what else was going on in my life, but it always came back to me being awful at moderating my booze.
For me, this was torture. A Groundhog’s Day-type reminder of how much I failed, how much I sucked, how if I just tried a little harder, got serious for real starting right now (or Monday, or January 1, get your shit together, Megan!), I would finally reach the Holy Grail of drinking: enough to have fun, but not enough to trash my body, ruin my mornings, or turn me into a total a-hole.
What I eventually discovered, though, is what so many people in sobriety discover.
That moderation, trying to drink “normally” (wtf ever that even means) is the hardest part. Once the will I/won’t I? mental tug of war was over, things got so much better.
Here’s the inconvenient truth if you have trouble with alcohol, if your drinking is at the point that you feel you need to look at, or do something about it: moderation does not work for most people. Alcohol is addictive, my friends. It’s designed that way, for everyone, not just the lost-everything-rock-bottom alcoholics we think of when we hear that term. It’s addictive to the mostly-functioning/mostly-have-our-shit-together people, too.
And my God, it sucks to admit that, at first.
To admit you’d be better off without drinking at all, ever. For me, it took a total mindset shift from viewing a sober life as a punishment, a last resort, a dull and boring existence to what it actually is: freedom, true joy, honest connection. Trying to moderate was the punishment; to ask myself to do something I physically, emotionally, neurologically could not do, only to fail, over and over. Deciding to be completely alcohol-free, once that mindset shift occurred? To tell you life got a million times easier and better, cliché as it is, would be an understatement.
Sobriety is a complete and utter gift. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t stopped drinking. I mean that in both a very dramatic and a very matter-of-fact way.
And now, as a reformed party girl with an obsession for sharing the good AF (alcohol-free) word, I’m devoted to sharing what I’ve learned, what I know, and what helps. I’m dedicated to helping other women find what I’ve found. And I’m unapologetically committed to living a booze-less life, full of meaning, purpose, and authentic pleasure. Want to join me, check it out, see if I can help? Click here, my love.
