Read This If You’re Thinking About Going Sober

Chances are if you’re anywhere between college-age and somewhere at the point in life where people expect you to actually have your life together, you’ve had a night or two where you’ve drunk so much you’ve contemplated giving up alcohol for good the next morning. Now, chances are you most likely didn’t actually go through with it; and, if you’re anything like me, by the end of that next night you were already repeating the steps of the night before.

I’ve had a love-hate-love-love-love-hate-love-love-hate relationship with alcohol for a while now. To say it’s complicated would be to say the empire state building is just barely above average in height…an understatement.

Alcohol brings memories we feel we wouldn’t have if we were sober; never matter how we may not remember most of those memories. Never matter that most of the time we scrunch up our faces because we can barely stand the taste of what we’re drinking. It doesn’t matter that we feel like crap the next day. Who cares that we get in our feelings and cry about nonsense in front of our friends or random strangers on the street. We find it hilarious when we embarrass ourselves. We don’t care when we’re in danger. We just want to be drunk.

We want to be someone else. Feel like someone else.

Alcohol does that…sort of.

If you’re looking for a quick way to go broke, throw yourself into the bottle and don’t come back up until you’re standing in your local liquor store at 10 am on a Tuesday being told that dreaded “sorry, ma’am you’re cards been declined” line. It won’t matter how many times they run it…that bottle shelf bottle will be going right back where you picked it up from.

So, if you’re thinking about going sober –even, if it’s just a small break to give yourself a little distance- if you’ve found yourself at this point, at these lows…rest in this: there’s no time like the present. If it’s weighing on your mind, if every drink, every night out, every bottle seems like another added weight onto your shoulders that you’re struggling to hold up…it’s alright to set a bottle or two down and walk away. It doesn’t have to be a lifelong commitment, but it’s okay to let yourself rest.

Breathe.

These moments are trying to tell you something. Make sure you’re listening.

Alcohol is neither good nor bad. It’s all in how you use it…how you feel before, during and after you use it.

Make your choices wisely before they start making you.