A Year Without Alcohol

What would happen if I didn’t have a drink at dinner?

I already knew part of the answer - my sleep would be less disturbed. I also knew it might prompt questions and speculations, but likely gentle ones. This was dinner with my parents, and both of them have gone through long periods of abstaining from alcohol for health purposes and personal reflection. It was, as we say, a safe space to decline a drink and name an intention to abstain.

While there’s mounting evidence that Gen Z drinks less than the millennial generation that preceded them, I’ve seen no shortage of humorous reels suggesting that millennials will single-handedly sustain the alcohol industry through sheer loyalty. Perhaps it simply dates us, but many of us came of age in an era where abstaining from alcohol meant one of two things: religious prohibition or a problematic, addictive relationship with drinking. It was so normalized that I remember a British healthcare policy advisor in the early 2000s remarking, somewhat candidly, “We didn’t dare publish our real recommended limits on alcohol because we wanted the public to at least consider reducing.”

And yet, even as we collectively minimized alcohol’s toxicity, many of us understood its costs. I know the grief and trauma of being in relationship with someone struggling with alcohol use disorder. I know what it is to monitor another person’s speech and behaviour for the rising threat that accompanies slurring. I know the emotional incongruity of fearing someone else’s drinking, but fearing the act of setting boundaries with them even more.

My sister modelled this shift years before I did. I have always known her to be the lightest of drinkers. She once said, “It just doesn’t feel right to take in that which has done so much harm in my life.” She was also the first in our family to declare her home alcohol-free - guests are warmly welcomed, but please do not BYOB.

What would happen if I didn’t have a drink this week?

I’ve never been a “weekday drinker,” but abstinence during the week does not necessarily balance higher levels of consumption on weekends. Plenty of research shows that health risk stems from both the frequency and the quantity consumed within a session. I’ve learned that for certain cancers, you would need to abstain from alcohol for years - even decades - to meaningfully reduce risk.

What health care professionals and scientists consider binge drinking does not align with what most people believe it to be. For example, a man drinking more than four or five “tall boys” of beer per week is already entering the high-risk category by Canadian health standards. Even two tall boys - especially of stronger craft beer - in one sitting exceeds the recommended two-drink limit per occasion.

What would happen if I didn’t drink this month?

Curiosity is a familiar starting point in contemplative traditions. The Buddha encouraged inquiry over doctrine; the yogic texts invite us to observe the effects of what we take into the body and mind. As I’ll share, there was a time in my life when feeling “me” slip away with a drink brought relief. Now, as a quiet benchmark of healing, I no longer long for that dissolution. I quite enjoy inhabiting myself.

My mother-in-law struggles with my experiment. She insists, “You don’t drink too much? There’s nothing wrong with a glass of wine with dinner!” Somewhat surprisingly, my family doctor and my naturopath made similar comments. I know “better reasons” would have garnered more support - pregnancy, for example, or severe illness.

So why does someone stop drinking when they are a light drinker?

Here were mine.

Sheer curiosity. Alcohol is so woven into the fabric of our social lives, rituals, and identities that it piques my curiosity to discover what life is like without it. I have a skeptical streak that needs satisfying if I’m to feel confident I’m making values-based decisions.

Alzheimer’s disease. When I chose to stop drinking, I was waiting on results from a genetic test to determine whether I carried high-risk genes for Alzheimer’s. Both of my biological grandmothers developed it, including my paternal grandmother, Florence, who died far too young from early-onset disease. I knew that if I carried those genes there would be no meaningful concept of “safe” consumption, and that this would likely become a lifelong commitment.

It turns out that I do not carry those high-risk genes. Still, alcohol remains a contributing risk factor, and the question of cognitive health continues to shape my decisions.

Sleep. I am a middle-aged woman with a young child, an emotionally and energetically demanding vocation, a small business, and a sincere desire to live in alignment with my needs. One of those needs is good-quality sleep, which can be elusive without disciplined sleep hygiene. Alcohol reliably disrupts sleep quality after its initial sedative effect.

Brain health. Even aside from Alzheimer’s risk, alcohol is a mild neurotoxin associated with measurable effects on brain structure and cognition. I love my brain. I want to care for it so that I can continue to enjoy the richness of my inner life. Yogic and Buddhist traditions both emphasize clarity of mind as a form of liberation - freedom (moksha) arises when we begin to see things as they are.

Spiritual practice. Substances have long been part of many spiritual traditions, including alcohol. I have been on a spiritual path for as long as I can remember. I was born a seeker and continue to orient my life around that impulse. Alcohol has never meaningfully deepened that journey.

A close friend once said, “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you tipsy.” That is likely because for almost a decade I have been consciously embracing minimal drinking. Alcohol may feel like it brings us closer to others by quieting our inner mental chatter, but it can also lead us to say or do things that reinforce social anxiety, subtly training us to rely on it again and again. I have had sufficient experiences of regret facilitated by alcohol to remain wary of that dynamic. If something moves me further away from an attuned relationship with myself, it is unlikely to support the most important relationship of my life - the one I have with my own mind and body.

Why did I drink too much? The sadness beneath heavy alcohol use

I do not have personal experience with problematic alcohol use as it has traditionally been defined by culture or earlier eras of health policy. That does not mean I am free from experiences that were, in fact, problematic.

In adolescence and early adulthood, my alcohol consumption increased during periods marked by grief, insecurity, or depression. It was severe depression in my second year of undergraduate study that first led me to therapy. A medication I was taking for acne caused such profound mood changes that I did not recognize what was happening. I believed I was simply a terrible person whose life would never amount to much, whose mistakes confirmed a kind of moral bankruptcy.

I had wonderful friends. I found genuine joy on the dance floor with them every weekend. But to get to the dance floor, I drank several terrible cocktails. (Amaretto sours - yikes.) Perhaps you can relate to the cycle of momentary reprieve followed by shame when the fog lifts. For me, the aftermath always confirmed my worst fears about myself.

Balancing a full course load, near full-time work, volunteering, and writing, I appeared highly functional. I was a conundrum to friends, coworkers, and professors. My mother sensed that something had changed. She suggested gently, “I found someone recommended by a close friend - she’s just one town over from Waterloo. What’s the worst that could happen?” It was the first time I saw a therapist. I believe I survived that year because of our work together.

Whatever your drug of choice, it often serves the same function: creating distance between you and your experience. You may not experience this as distancing from yourself; it may feel like distance from your boss, your partner, your children, “this day,” or “this week.” Ultimately, it reflects a perception that what is present within you cannot be borne.

What if I didn’t drink for three months?

Like most humans, I am not immune to magical thinking. A small voice whispered: maybe if you stop drinking you will solve all your problems. Perfect sleep. A bulletproof immune system. Impeccable gut health.

I might be an uninspiring testimonial for abstinence. I cannot point to dramatic, measurable transformations. But I was already a relatively light drinker for many years.

I have been quietly delighted to see my parents and my partner reduce their own consumption, each reporting less pain, improved sleep, and subtle shifts in overall wellbeing. I have certainly noticed positive changes in my husband, Alex, who replaced his Monday-through-Thursday beer with a non-alcoholic IPA.

What I did notice most clearly was this: after the initial attention from friends and family subsided, not drinking allowed me to be more fully myself. I am usually the first to leave any gathering in pursuit of sleep and restoration, and abstaining made this even easier. I no longer ruminated on whether a single glass of wine would compromise the following day. As a result, I began to look forward to social events more, not less. They could meet my relational needs without simultaneously becoming a liability to my health or mood.

I also have more than twenty years of practices that orient me toward turning inward rather than away. One way I describe yoga and Ayurveda is that they cultivate a healthy relationship with reality. In yogic language, clarity and discernment (viveka) arise when we remove what clouds perception. I know firsthand the difference between practices that genuinely nourish the spirit, body, and mind, and those that merely pacify the pain of living.

What if I didn’t drink for six months?

I received many expressions of admiration and genuine curiosity from friends and family. They have been supportive. Occasionally someone will say, “You’re still doing that? Wow. Good for you.” In part this reflects the fact that I never set a specific endpoint.

I did not approach this as “Dry January,” or as a time-limited challenge. I wanted it to function as an ongoing practice of self-attunement: how does this feel, right now? When I first began writing this post, I had passed the three-month mark. Then six. At some point I thought, perhaps I’ll continue for a year and see what unfolds.

When Alex and I acknowledged the six-month mark, our son Harvey asked for clarification.

“Mama hasn’t had an alcoholic beverage - wine, beer, that kind of thing - for six months.”

“Wow. Really? That’s hard for adults.”

I didn’t drink for a year

It was not actually that hard. The first dinner party without a glass of wine was likely the most challenging moment. Since I do not feel a sense of loss, I am not anticipating a return to something I miss.

I am unsure what comes next. I do not know whether the switch is permanently flipped. I was at my parents’ place for dinner on the one-year mark and I did not celebrate with a drink.

In Buddhist practice we are often invited to remain with the question rather than rush toward certainty. (An ongoing lesson for me; still a growth edge.) My ease with not knowing may reflect both personal growth and cultural change. Perhaps we are arriving at a moment where one no longer needs to adopt an identity - “teetotaller,” “sober,” “abstinent” - in order to receive permission or support for simply choosing not to drink.

For now, not drinking feels less like a rule or an identity, and more a form of listening. It is one small facet of staying in relationship with my own life as it is actually unfolding - imperfect, demanding, often beautiful, and always instructive. If there is a through-line in this year, it is not abstinence so much as a growing tolerance for being present. The experiment of abstaining from alcohol became an experiment in inhabiting myself. And at this stage of my life, that feels less like deprivation and more like freedom.