Today marks exactly one year without alcohol.

2017 was my year without buying clothes (read about that here), I came off this feat with so much inspiration and excitement to do another year without something. It was not going to be another year without buying clothes. That was never going to happen again, once in a life time is more than enough. Yet I needed to do something.

Towards the end of 2017 I started assessing my life, who I was, what made me tick etc. and looking back over the year made me realise, I had drank alcohol almost every day.

Now, I have never been a big drinker. I’ve never been one to turn to a bottle of something when I’m happy or sad, for that matter. Drinking for me had always been at an event or party, and there were sometimes weeks between drinks. Well not in 2017.

I started by just having the odd red wine with dinner, this turned into one or two glasses every night. I was never drinking enough to be drunk or have a hangover the next day, but I was drinking.

At my 30^th birthday party I drank a full bottle of champagne to myself during the day and then proceeded to have about 6 shots of tequila that evening. Now, this got me drunk, but I wasn’t paralytic even though I should have been, right!?

The next day I woke with a tiredness and grogginess that was easily fixed with some nasi goreng for breakfast. Contrast this to a friend of mine who had consumed the same amount of tequila as me, and she was on struggle street unable to stomach anything, while I strolled around the markets.

This left me feeling a little uneasy at the tolerance I had built up.

The clincher came when a few weeks later, as I sat down for dinner one night and my Boyfriend was pouring us both a glass each of wine, I was looking longingly at the ruby red liquid filling up the glass and remarked, “Haven’t you just been waiting for this ALL day!?” My Boyfriend stopped pouring and looked at me with bemused look on his face and simply replied “No”.

Oh, I thought, was I not meant to be hanging out for my nightly red?

During this time I had also been learning about the human body and what each organ had to do to keep that human alive. The liver, as it turns out, is used for a lot more than processing alcohol. This blew my mind as well.

Apparently, the liver preforms about 200 vital functions, none of which are booze related.  

So on the 29^th December 2017, I helped myself to three rather healthy glasses of my favourite red, and quietly said good bye to alcohol for the next 12 months.

The next 12 months saw a lot of celebrations; weddings, birthdays, births, farewells, and Christmas parties, and I’d like to think I was an active participant in each of these occasions, sans alcohol.

I was able to travel to New Zealand in July for my sister’s wedding, give a speech to 120 odd people and dance up a storm: Sober.

The next test came in September when I attended another wedding, this time on the idyllic island of Bali for my good friend to her man. They had an open cocktail bar which was all you could drink. I instead sipped water and the occasional lime and soda. I still danced to the reggae band and had an amazing night: Sober. I even woke the next day and did some of my uni studies, I felt great!

I went to a work friend’s farewell party, which concluded that evening at a karaoke bar in the city, and yes you guessed it, I sang my little heart out: SOBER!

Mostly, everyone I told about my year without challenge was very supportive and there was only one instance of someone giving me the look up and down to see if they could see a baby belly poking out, when I mentioned I didn’t drink – because this would be the only legitimate excuse to not be drinking, right!?

While everyone was supportive of me doing one year off the booze, I constantly got: “Well next year, I can’t wait till we can drink together again” a lot. I think it was automatically assumed that I would be back on the horse, ripe and rearing to go come December 29, 2018.

Yet, I liked not drinking.

Over the past 12 months I have thoroughly enjoyed turning down drinks and taking care of my body. I still feel like I have had a lot of fun and gone out to the events I have been invited to. Although, I feel like there is a bit of pair pressure to get back in line and be quote on quote normal again. It was fine for me to experiment with not drinking for a year but that was enough, I now needed to get back to my old ways, stat!

Humans have a strange relationship with alcohol. It’s a poison, yet it’s legal so we consume it regularly and in excess. It makes some of us violent, some depressed, and others happy. It’s a neurotoxin which means it damages the brain (1), it can cause what’s known as fatty liver disease (2), and it has been shown to lower blood glucose levels dangerously low to the point where ketoacidosis occurs (3). Yet, it’s totally socially acceptable and I can even hear you now scream “all this won’t occur with a few harmless drinks everything now and again! That’s for alcoholics, not ME!” Well, yes that’s true.

It’s also not as well.

We live in a world that is constantly bombarding us with toxic chemicals, from the air we breathe, the make-up we lather on our faces, the food we ingest that has been genetically modified and then bathed in roundup, to the plastic’s we use for EVERYTHING! There is no escape.

So, for me, removing one simple thing aka alcohol (remember it too is a toxin) from my life helps me feel and be a little happier and healthier every day.

I’m not saying you should not drink, that is a very personal choice and one that is heavily influenced by society at large. All I’m asking is that it’s not simply assumed that everyone must drink to enjoy their life. Because team, I ain’t drinking.

My year without alcohol taught me that it’s actually a non-necessity and that I can live a far more fulfilling life without it.

So excuse me while I maintain drinking my soda water and limes.

Cheers everyone!  

SA xxxx