The Habit of Not Drinking
Chapter One + Four Things Sobriety
THE ACT OF DRINKING IS A HABIT, AND HABITS CAN BE CHANGED.
A few weeks ago, I shared a story of how my habits shaped my drinking and how I came to realize this only after I had quit drinking and read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Which, in my opinion, should be on all quit-lit bookshelves. I gave one example of how I would leave work, and before going home, I would first stop at the liquor store right next to the front door of my NYC apartment. And before I knew it, I would pour that initial glass of wine without having asked myself if I even wanted it in the first place. I was simply moving through a set of steps that eventually became habituated.
This is not to say that I was mindlessly drinking alcohol all the time. There were plenty of times when I actively chose to drink. But the mindless drinking wasn’t due to physical cravings. It was because I had poor habits, with very little resistance between me and the act of drinking alcohol.
Atomic Habits will benefit anyone who drinks or has considered their drinking habits. When I first read it in early 2019, I was 3+ years AF, and it blew me away. Everything I had been feeling and speaking to was so easily explained through the lens of drinking as a poor habit rather than an addiction. So whether you are a long-time teetotaler or someone just curious about this lifestyle, grab the book, and let’s dig in.
If you are new here, welcome! This new series, The Habit of Not Drinking, is less of a book report and more of an examination of how and why we drink and how to change our habits to create an irresistible alcohol-free lifestyle.
If you have been here for some time and have upgraded your subscription (TYSM!), you will find a section titled Four Things Sobriety at the bottom of each email. As you already know, researching is fun for me, and sharing the intel is my love language. So sit back and let me do the digging for you.
Chapter One. The Surprising Power of Atomic Habits.
"The aggregation of marginal gains."
Essentially, this is the premise of this whole book. Make the smallest improvements on a day-to-day basis and improve by 1% daily.
It’s a lot like the mindful drinking movement: The idea is not to drink as much or as often and to be more mindful when choosing to do so. This will not work for everyone, including yours truly. But for some, it's very powerful and works wonders. There are no set rules; the drinker only makes more mindful decisions regarding their drinking. It could involve drinking one less glass of alcohol a night or taking one night a week off from drinking—it’s the act of making any improvement in the direction of less or at least consciously.
This doesn't work for many because of the way alcohol affects the brain and the decision-making function. How often have you gone out and said you would only have one or two drinks? Only to find yourself out till four in the morning and with a massive hangover the next day because you drank way more than those two allotted drinks. Don’t punish or shame yourself because you didn’t have enough willpower to follow your boundaries/rules/guardrails because trying to control alcohol (a mind-altering substance) is very difficult and can be a complete mindf*ck.
Ideas to change your habit of drinking slowly over time.
Talk about it with someone. But talk to the right people—the cheerleaders in your life. Maybe they are close to you or not. A friend of a friend who doesn’t drink could be an excellent option.
Use a replacement to limit the amount or frequency. Instead of happy hour on Tuesday nights, sign up for an activity you have been dying to do.
Reward yourself for any improvements, and get out of any shame and blame game. We live in self-love now!
Consider working with a coach who specializes in habits and lifestyle changes.
"We put pressure on ourselves to make some earth shattering improvement that everyone will talk about."
There is a reason why the Disappear for Six Months and Change Your Life type videos on YouTube are so popular. These videos play on both the sexy & big-reveal aspects of change while acknowledging that they don’t happen overnight.
Remember that life doesn’t magically change overnight just because you quit drinking. While the decision is worth it, don’t be shocked when you get hit by some curveballs. Removing alcohol as a crutch means you have to learn to deal with a lot of life without it. That means lots of feelings will need addressing, and that’s not always a good time.
Knowing that quitting is just the beginning will lessen your shock at the work involved in this new way of navigating life.
"Unfortunately, the slow pace of transformation also makes it easy to let a bad habit slide."
I know how frustrating it is to commit not to drink, only to break it a few hours or days into the commitment. Humans have an excellent way of talking themselves out of a self-imposed promise to themselves. We do it all the time, so why should it be any different when it comes to drinking? I guarantee you are not the only one who has promised not to drink for a certain amount of time only to have a bestie call with a party invite, and without even considering it, you are out the door.
Or have you ever found yourself not having had anything to drink, going to the gym, eating well, and looking fierce, only to self-sabotage because you are feeling so good that you want to go out? I get it! I call that the I feel so good, I think I'll stop—mentality. This mentality is also when we start to question our decision to quit alcohol. Thinking things like My drinking wasn't that bad, so why am I punishing myself? - More on this in future chapters.
"A single decision is easy to dismiss." / "Small choices compound into toxic results."
What do you say to yourself in the split second when you are about to self-sabotage? You know the voice that talks you out of doing something good or negates all the good things you have already accomplished. Or the voice that says just this one time is ok, or my personal go-to, you deserve it.
Discovering what that voice says to you in those decision-making seconds can be a pivotal step toward creating the life you want.
To discover that little voice, you must get quiet. You have to sit and watch what it is saying. You have to be quick because it’s a sneaky little f*cker.
Think about it: What are some things you silently say or argue to yourself to justify your choices? More than likely, what you are telling yourself about drinking are the same things you are saying to yourself about other self-sabotaging behavior.
Find your self-sabotaging voice and call it out!
"Plateau of Latent Potential," aka the valley of disappointment.
Do you feel like you are doing so much, but nothing is happening? James Clear states that the plateau of latent potential occurs when you work hard but have yet to see improvement. Most people will tell themselves that they will never be able to quit, and they will talk themselves out of it because what’s the point?
But remember…
"Mastery requires patience."
Don’t quit before the magic!
This is also a great time to mention social media. People may go on looking for inspiration, and they see someone who already has the life they want. Instead of feeling inspired, they get upset because they can't seem to achieve it right now. When in reality, they don’t consider the many failures, attempts, and countless hours that didn’t go well that are not shown on social media.
Don’t let this common misconception mess up any increments of improvement with your drinking you may have made. We all need to be mindful when consuming alcohol-free content online. And do not compare your insides with other people’s outsides. Every person drinks differently, and every person quits differently and for different reasons.
JC lists the four reasons we should not focus on goals and instead focus on the systems we put in place to get us to where we want to be.
Winners and losers have the same goals.
Achieving a goal is only a momentary change.
Goals restrict your happiness.
Goals are at odds with long-term progress.
Take Dry January and Sober October, for example. How many people will take that monthly break and then, when it's over, go BIG with drinking? And before they know it, they will be back to daily drinking or drinking way too much. They met the goal, achieved the goal, and immediately left the goal behind. If you only focus on the goal, nothing matters after that momentary celebration once you have completed it. But focus on the day-to-day habits that you had to create to get to that goal, such as going to the gym instead of the bar, calling old friends instead of drinking alone at home, or signing up for a creative class instead of weekend binging - then maybe we can let go of the goal and set our sites on the habits that create a lifestyle.
"Success is the product of daily habits."
"If you want to predict where you'll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and you see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line."
How does choosing to drink every weekend affect your life? How about those Mon-Fri happy-hour drinks year in and year out? Do we want our lives filled with one long line of days hanging out in bars? Do we want to skip out on life because we can't get out of bed due to a nasty hangover? Do we want to see another year pass by, not having tended to our wants and desires?
What would it feel like if a gravestone read, "She could party with the best of them. And she had the best dreams and the most potential, oh well, maybe in the next life."
The little choices we make every day, consistently, will lead us to become a certain type of person—it just depends on our choices.
Now go get after it!
M.
Below - Four Things Sobriety.