After 8 Years Sober, My Thoughts on Alcohol are Changing

But it might not be how you expect.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

I quit drinking over eight years ago, at the very end of 2016.

I stopped drinking because I had an addiction. I had been getting drunk more or less every day for years. Despite trying again and again to cut back, I couldn’t get myself to start drinking less. So, I cut alcohol out of my life altogether.

My first couple of years sober were rough, but gradually my life started to get better. As long-time readers of this newsletter surely know by now, these days, I credit my sobriety with completely turning my life around.

By removing alcohol from my life, I was able to pursue all kinds of other improvements that I had been dreaming about for years. I found a better job, got healthier, saved money, made new friends, and more.

Alcohol was ruining my life, and getting sober saved it.

However, despite these dramatic changes, I’ve always been clear that I don’t think sobriety is necessary for everyone. I write about living alcohol-free from the perspective of someone who suffered from a very serious addiction. I understand that some people can drink in moderation and don’t suffer the same extreme detrimental effects that I did.

Now though, over eight years into my sobriety, I’m once again changing the way I think about alcohol. I’m starting to believe more and more that alcohol is bad for everyone, even if its harms aren’t nearly as bad for most people as they are for addicts.

I’ve come to truly believe that on the whole, alcohol’s harms outweigh its benefits, even for non-addicts.

When I see how non-alcoholics drink, it often feels like they’re using alcohol as a crutch in similar ways (albeit less extreme) to how I used to. Even though they don’t have a compulsion to drink, many still have built a reliance on alcohol to get them through social situations, or even to have fun when they go out.

It also becomes an immense waste of money for many of them, even if they aren’t drinking nearly as much as I used to. This has become more extreme each year as new taxes and inflation drive up the price of booze. Ordinary drinkers are spending extraordinary amounts of money on alcohol. I’ve seen it when I go out to eat with friends who drink, and my bill ends up being less than half of what they’re paying.

There are also far more serious societal problems linked to alcohol. It damages health, even among drinkers who aren’t alcoholics. It leads to car crashes and premature death, even among non-addicts. It’s behind a massive proportion of domestic violence.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that it leads to these things in every drinker. I’ll even admit that some drinkers probably get more benefits than detriments out of alcohol. However, I’ve started to believe that for the vast majority of people—alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike—their lives would be better without any alcohol.

If I’m right about this, what’s the solution? I don’t have a complete answer.

I’ll start by saying that I absolutely don’t believe we should go back to prohibition. As a former defense attorney, I’m never in favor of increased criminalization. I know that those laws do far more harm than good.

I want people to drink less, but not at the threat of legal punishment.

I think perhaps a better tact is for those of us who don’t drink to lead by example. We should use our lives to show that life without alcohol is truly more interesting, fun, and enriching.

I always like to be open with new people about my sobriety, and in part, it’s because I think I’ve become a good example of how someone with addiction can overcome it and live a full life. I hope that I can also be a good example of how life without alcohol can be better in general.

I live a very full life, which includes travel, friendships, a fulfilling job, and fun hobbies. I hope that these types of lives can become more and more normalized.

I’d love to see more examples of happy alcohol-free living in media as well. Unfortunately, many pieces of media are directly sponsored by alcohol companies. We end up seeing built-in advertisements for beer brands when we’re simply trying to watch TV. It would be a great step in the right direction if we had less of those insidious sponsorships.

However, I know that these large media companies are beholden to shareholders and it can be difficult to turn down lucrative advertising deals. So perhaps the answer lies in smaller creators instead.

Again, I don’t know exactly what the solution here is, but I do at the very least hope we can move toward a society in which alcohol is less and less prominent.

The focus of this newsletter is always going to be on sobriety for alcoholics because that’s my background and I’m committed to writing what I know. However, I hope that some of what I write here might also inspire non-alcoholics to give abstinence a try.

I really believe that even if alcohol isn’t completely ruining your life, you might still benefit from quitting drinking. I know that this is sure to be a controversial take, but I suspect that many other people in sobriety have also come to the same conclusion.

If you disagree, feel free to let me know, but I thought that it was important to share my evolving thoughts on this since I’ve previously said just the opposite.

Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, and I certainly don’t know the solution to alcohol’s grip on our society. However, I hope that simply by acknowledging the problem, we can start working toward fixing it.