Why I Don’t Make Exceptions to My Sobriety
By: Benya Clark
Tags: Sobriety, Alcoholism, Self Improvement, Mental Health, Addiction

A few years ago, I heard a recovering alcoholic say that he intentionally breaks his sobriety each Christmas for a single drink. Although this strategy seems to have worked fine for him, it always stuck in my mind because of how absolutely disastrous it would turn out if I ever tried the same thing.

I’ve been completely, one-hundred-percent alcohol-free since the end of 2016. Initially I was resistant to this total-abstinence approach. Prior to getting sober, I went through many attempts to cut back on my drinking instead. I had been a daily drinker for around ten years, but I thought the best solution was to simply reduce my intake.

I made all kinds of rules for myself, like “only drinking on the weekends” or “only drinking with friends.” What I learned about myself is that I don’t stick to these self-imposed rules very well. I always created more and more exceptions until I was right back to drinking every day.

Even though I’ve now been sober for nearly four years, I have no reason to expect that I’d be any better at moderating my drinking these days than I was back then.

If I started having one drink per year, I can easily imagine what would happen next. One drink would become two drinks, and two drinks would become three. I’d find other days to use as excuses — my birthday or more holidays. Soon, that would turn into drinking every weekend, and eventually every day. The exceptions have a way of snowballing, until they wind up becoming the norm.

I’ve been down this road so many times before that I know exactly how it ends. I know that one drink is never really just one drink.

The easy choice for me is to just skip drinking altogether, no matter how good of an excuse I have to make an exception.

Alcohol Is Not a Reward

Even if it weren’t for these pragmatic reasons for my abstinence, I have a more ideological reason to stay completely sober as well.

I spent most of my life thinking of alcohol as a gift or reward. Getting drunk was associated with having fun, partying, and making friends.

The strange thing is that these associations had very little to do with the role that alcohol was actually playing in my life. Drinking was rarely “fun” for me. Instead, it was a compulsion that I desperately wanted to escape. In reality, the main reason I thought of drinking as fun was because alcohol companies poured millions of dollars into marketing to make me think of it that way.

When I drank, I didn’t experience the exciting life that we see in commercials. I spent more time alone in my apartment than partying with friends. My life with alcohol was about sitting on the couch, watching television, and wishing I could get away from my addiction.

Now that I’ve finally escaped my addiction — now that I’m finishing my fourth year free from alcohol — why would I ever have a celebratory drink? Treating alcohol as something exciting, to be treasured on holidays and special occasions, feels perverse when I reflect on my history with it.

I’d rather remember alcohol for what it really was to me: A cause for constant struggle. The best way I can celebrate isn’t with a drink — it’s by staying sober.