At the time of posting this it will have been 278 days since my last drink.
Before I dive in, I would like to start with a disclaimer that I am not a medical doctor, therapist, or addiction expert. I am just a person with a story, who hopes that by telling my story, I might inspire someone else to examine their own relationship with alcohol. If you are currently struggling with addiction or substance abuse please know that help is available.
Please also note that everything below is just my opinion and is based on my life experience as both a person who has a problematic relationship with alcohol and as a person with loved ones who struggle with more severe forms of substance abuse and addiction.
When I think about problematic drinking, I see four distinct, but not mutually exclusive, problem areas:
Frequency
Quantity
Behavior
Reasons
frequency
If you were to think about the habits of an alcoholic or problem drinker, frequency is likely one of the first things that comes to mind. People often assume that in order to have a drinking problem one must drink everyday or close to it.
That is certainly what I used to believe. I would use the fact that I could very easily go days, weeks, and even the occasional month (dry January) without drinking to quiet the part of me that wondered if I did have a drinking problem.
But while daily drinking can absolutely be problematic and indicative of a problem, it is not the only warning sign.
quantity
The next thing you likely consider is the quantity that someone is drinking. How many drinks are they having over the course of a night, a week, and a month, and how quickly are they drinking said drinks?
The SAMHSA defines binge drinking as 5 or more alcoholic drinks for males or 4 or more alcoholic drinks for females on the same occasion (i.e., at the same time or within a couple of hours of each other) on at least 1 day in the past month.
The NIAAA defines heavy alcohol use as 5 or more drinks on any given day or more than 15 drinks a week for males and 4 or more drinks on any given day or more than 8 drinks a day for females.
behavior
Next, we have behavior. To me, this encompasses two questions:
Does alcohol change someone’s personality?
What kind of behavior does someone exhibit when they are drinking?
If the answer to the first question is yes, that could be indicative of a problem, especially if drinking makes their personality worse.
The second questions comes with a subset of additional questions. Questions including, but not limited to:
Are they prone to making poor, dangerous, and/or risky decisions?
Do they become angry or cruel?
Have the ever driven a car drunk?
Have they ever physically hurt someone?
reasons
Last, but certainly not least, are someone’s reasons for drinking.
Why does someone drink? Why do they drink as frequently as they do? Why do they consume as much alcohol in one sitting as they do?
Do they only ever drink socially or at celebrations? Do they drink to numb their feelings or ease anxiety? Do they drink to cope with stress? Do they drink when they’re feeling down?
let’s talk about my drinking
how often did i drink?
Frequency of drinking has never really been a problem area for me.
Sure, in college and my early 20s I drank more days of the week than not, but that was the norm for my social circle and on par with my peers.
Did that make it healthy? No, of course not. But plenty of people who drink more frequently than they should when they are young can do so without developing an alcohol use disorder. Though, it is important to note that heavy drinking at a young age does increase the likelihood that someone will develop a drinking problem later in life.
As I settled into adulthood, the frequency I was drinking dropped considerably and by my mid-20s I was really only drinking on weekends aside from the occasional girl’s wine night or work dinner. I grew up in a household where daily drinking was the norm and it was a behavior that I knew I did not want to model in my own home.
When I quit drinking in October 2023 it was very rare for me to have a drink on days other than Friday and/or Saturday.
how much did i drink?
It varied quite a bit.
In college and my early 20s pretty much every time I drank qualified as binge drinking per the aforementioned guidelines. However, binge drinking was very much the norm in my circle.
So much so that no one would bat an eye if one of us declared, ‘I’m getting blackout1 tonight,’ while we sipped cheap vodka mixed with Crystal Light and curled our hair. Everyone would raise their glasses to the sentiment and be sure their iPhone 4s were at least semi-charged and ready to capture any dance floor BOMOs (blackout makeouts) that were sure to occur.
Something I have realized in retrospect is that while other people made plenty of jokes about blacking out, very few people were actually blacking out as often as I did.
Like the frequency that I drank, the amount I drank slowly tapered off over the years, but when looking at what actually qualifies as binge drinking, I was still binge drinking on many Fridays and Saturdays. Not all of them — I could go to dinner with my husband or girlfriends and cut it off after one or two2 — but enough of them.
And not only was I binge drinking, I was also still blacking out on a regular basis.
Which leads me to the next problem area…
how did i behave while drinking?
Batshit. Fucking. Crazy.
That’s pretty much the only way to put it.
Not all of the time. Most of the time, I behaved perfectly fine. Even when I was blackout, the insane things I said and did were generally harmless3. They were the kind of things that made for funny brunch stories rather than cautionary tales4.
However, every now and then — and it was becoming more frequent as I got older — when I was blackout drunk, I became a completely different person. Unrecognizable not just to my husband and friends, but to myself as well. When people would recount my actions from the night before, it would be as if I were hearing stories about someone else. Surely I couldn’t be the one who was doing and saying those awful things… things I would never do or say or even think sober… could I be?
Unfortunately, yes. It very much could be me and was me.
People say that alcohol brings out the truth and I agree… to a point. The right amount of alcohol would loosen my lips, make me more brazen and honest, but a single sip past that point and I would turn into a pathological liar seemingly intent on hurting the people I love most.
sooo why exactly was i drinking/drinking that much?
I am going to dedicate an entire post to this question, but the main reasons were that I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism and as a social crutch.
But I also didn’t realize how much I was drinking. When most people drink, it makes them sleepy and if they drink too much they will eventually throw up or pass out.
I, however, am part of a small subset of people who are energized by alcohol. Instead of a sedative effect, alcohol acts as a stimulant for me. But the problem with that is, that even though alcohol kept me awake, chatting and drinking, I was blackout and therefore, unaware that I was still drinking long far beyond the point where I should have stopped.
finally, we return to the main question — why did i stop drinking?
Short answer — My behavior when drinking is why I stopped.
Long answer — Please don’t hate me (!!) but I am going to stop here for now and dive deeper on this next week. When I started writing this piece, I didn’t intend for it to be this long, but it took on a life of it’s own and now here we are.
Thank you so much for reading!! I really hope this initial piece was helpful! If you have any questions, you are welcome to leave a comment here or DM me on Instagram for more privacy.
XOXO,
Maddie
Blacking out does not mean passing out. Blacking out means that you cannot recall large time periods of the previous night — or maybe even the entire night — in the morning despite having been awake, active, and engaging during said time period.
Although I could and did often cut it off after one or two, it was usually because I thought I should cut it off and because everyone else was cutting it off, not because I wanted to. I have a lot more to say on this subject, but it requires it’s own post — stay tuned!
Although my behavior might have been harmless, the act of blacking out is, in of itself, quite harmful.
Though I have many, many cautionary tales.
this is real
Thank you for sharing this. Sobriety is cool. The last time I went out to a bar and drank was in April last year. I went a whole year without it. Then, in April this year, I celebrated my one-year sobriety by having a margarita at my favourite Mexican restaurant—just one. I haven't drunk since and don't think I will for a long, long time. I wasn’t drunk, but I was tipsy. I stopped for mental health reasons because whenever I drink, I feel so horrible and cry the following day. It happened again in April, and I found myself balling my eyes out in public 24 hours after I had that margarita. I’m only 20, so I still feel that pressure whenever I go out with friends on a night out. At first, it was difficult because I would feel so stupid and just hyper-aware of everything going on, but now I have so much more fun without it. Honestly, people question if I am drinking when I go out even though I’m completely sober. Some people don't understand you can have fun at the club without drinking. I also feed off people’s energies. I also enjoy being the designated driver. Being alcohol-free is a beautiful thing & it makes me feel so much more present when I'm dancing with my friends. Thank you for your vulnerability! 🩷