2020 was the year everyone drank, except me
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This is a polaroid taken of me at my 35th birthday drinks on 29 February 2020.
Hilariously, this polaroid came with the cocktail I ordered – fancy cocktail and a free photo, who could resist!? My birthday was toasted, and, it was, without knowing it, the last hurrah I would have with my Melbourne friends for nearly a year.
I am so grateful for this time because I got to squeeze the people I love dearest in Melbourne. The following weeks the world would turn upside down and smooshing the faces of those I care for most would soon be but a distant memory.
I set a personal goal for myself the day after my birthday celebrations, that I would not drink alcohol until my next birthday. For one whole year I would be alcohol-free. It’s something I had been thinking about for a while, so I was really looking forward to it. A little birthday gift to myself.
Alcohol hadn’t been agreeing with me for some time, but I persisted! Because to be social often meant to be at a bar or gathering with pals and having a glass of bubbles in hand.
But my body was suffering, and I would get a hangover from even just one glass. My mental state diminished following drinking and my immune system was suffering. The ‘alcohol blues’ were taking longer to get over. Now, the negatives of drinking far outweighed the positives and my mind, body and soul were screaming at me to make a change.
I was DONE. I was done spending my Saturdays feeling less than great. I was done with the bank account assassination from endlessly shouting drinks. I was done feeling sick and I was done feeling regret and totally done feeling the alcohol blues.
So, hello to a year without alcohol! I was only a social (binge) drinker, so when Covid hit two weeks after I made this challenge and I was stuck in Melbourne isolation living alone, I knew that the social pressure to drink had been completely removed. I was relieved.
I set the year challenge for myself to give myself permission and time to reset and enjoy my life and weekends sans alcohol and to adapt new social habits. But really, setting a ‘challenge’ more than anything was what I needed so that people could respect and understand my choice without the need to question me or pressure me to have a drink with them.
Because as a woman, saying you’re not drinking there are one of two assumptions made. One, you’re on antibiotics. Or two, you’re pregnant. It’s hard in social settings for people to understand that you just don’t want to drink. Setting this challenge avoided these assumptions and pressures at social gatherings and made explaining why I wasn’t drinking in a digestible and understandable way.
My year is nearly up, and this time has given my body the opportunity to process and clear my system. Do I miss drinking? Absolutely not. Because what I have come to realise during this time is that my mental, physical and emotional health is everything and I don’t have the capacity anymore to engage in anything that doesn’t support my wellbeing in a positive way. Alcohol was just too much of a jerk to me.
This isn’t about what I’ve lost or been deprived of. It’s about what I’ve said ‘NO’ to in order to gain more in my life. More meaningful connections, more free time, more time to contribute to the things that really matter – my business, family and friendships. Saying YES to my health and YES to new opportunities.
During this year off drinking I have woken up every weekend since feeling fresh! I haven’t felt the alcohol blues, I have had a clear mind and my body has reset.
After seven glorious years living in Melbourne, I moved back home to Canberra in June 2020. Soon after, I met an amazing man, fell in love and he has never even seen me with a drink – we dated completely alcohol-free, which was beautifully refreshing and so much nicer to see a person without any kind of filter. It was real and lovely. He truly saw me, and I truly saw him.
Rather than compile a list of well-meaning New Year’s resolutions, each year I choose a word for the year – an anchor for the year ahead and a guiding light. ‘Love’ was my word for 2020, and I only just reflected that doing this year without alcohol was such an incredible form of self-love.
My word for 2021 is ‘Expansion’ and I can already feel that the choice I made last year has expanded my life in the most lovely of ways.
Will I go back to having alcohol post 27th February this year? I’m not sure yet… I have come to love how I feel without alcohol. But what I do know is that either way, my relationship to it has completely changed.
Now happy hour for me is a cup of tea and a biscuit, and I couldn’t be happier! Cheers to a year of everything that sparks and supports LOVE and a big NO to everything that doesn’t.
