I first started drinking alcohol at 14 years old. In my community, adults offer everyone except young kids alcohol at dinner. If you accidentally get too tipsy as a teenager, and adults are around, they’ll just warn you to chill out.
At 15 years old, I got properly drunk for the first time. My older sister and I snuck out with her friends, and even though we clearly didn’t look of age, no club or bar refused us entry. None of the bars even asked for ID.
This lax drinking culture was ingrained in me early on, so I felt like nothing bad could ever come of it. I was lucky not to depend on alcohol, but I did indulge — perhaps too much — when social situations called for it. But what’s the harm in social drinking?
My trajectory towards rejecting alcohol began in my first year of college, after I threw up for the first (and only) time. Kneeling in front of the toilet after a night out was humiliating, but the worst part is that I barely even remember it because I totally blacked out. My friends had to tell me everything that happened that night. Losing chunks of memory made me feel vulnerable, and I vowed never to let it happen again.
Besides the sheer embarrassment, the physical sensations jolted me. The feeling of vodka coming right back up your throat, the acrid taste, the choking pressure, the lack of control over my body as it tried to cleanse itself. A month later, when I tried liquor for the first time, I had to gag to keep it down because of how severely the memory of throwing up impacted me. I still drank after the night when I blacked out, but I certainly never got anywhere near as drunk as I had that time. I also drank considerably less often, a tendency that I didn’t even notice at first.
At around the same time, I developed a more consistent workout schedule, improved my sleep, and became disillusioned with my previous beliefs about drinking. I witnessed a family member’s drinking problem and saw how much harm alcohol caused them. I won’t pretend that my family was the main reason that I decided to stop drinking — because it wasn’t. But seeing this person struggle with alcohol played a significant role in changing my beliefs.
More importantly, when I started taking my health seriously, healthier habits slowly bled into my life to make my fitness journey easier to maintain. I almost instinctually said “no” when others offered me drinks. I continued to enjoy myself at social events even without alcohol. I soon discovered that being the only sober one in a room full of drunk people is similar to being the only person without a phone when everyone else is doomscrolling. If you weren’t put off by their behavior before, then you certainly are now.
Talking with others about drinking helped as well. Having the support of my sister and discussing our country’s drinking culture, our complacency in it, and how we wanted to change, made me feel less alone and more confident in staunchly turning down alcohol, even when family and friends pushed me to drink.
At the end of the day, my decision to “quit” alcohol didn’t happen overnight. It took years of self-reflection and small decisions until one day, at 21 years old, I couldn’t remember the last time I drank. And that felt awesome.
