My Soberish

In June, I turned to my wife and said, “So, I haven’t had a drink in six months.”
She replied, “That’s great! I’ve done that—for nine months. Twice!”
I said, “Oh? When?”
There was a long silence.
“When I was pregnant… with our kids…”
“Oh yeah…” I replied.
Once again, women doing it backwards and in heels.

As of last weekend, I haven’t had a drink in a year. Not because I had an alcohol problem—though both my parents were in AA for a decade-plus. I never had their sort of problem with it. Drinking hasn’t been working for me anymore, and I wanted to share why.

I used to get headaches from a glass of wine, or an upset stomach from a beer. I got tired of that. Like many, I drank more during the pandemic, but after the peak I tapered—twice a month, then once, then just special occasions. Around last Christmas, I decided to stop. I wasn’t sure if it was forever, but it’s been a year and I feel better. I sleep better. I feel healthier.

I never regularly lifted heavy weights until around the pandemic when I built my garage gym. I mainly ran—slow marathons, trail races, and a bunch of half marathons. I wasn’t a natural runner, but I grew to love it.

Then the world shut down, we were home with a newborn, and 5 years later, here we are. Last year, at 41, I benched 285, squatted 405, and deadlifted 505. Alcohol hasn’t added to that journey.

If you’ve read what I’ve written in the past, you know where I stand on some things. Here’s where I stand on alcohol. In my 20s and 30s, I loved it—the creativity of craft, the ritual of drinks with friends. When I moved to NYC at 23, I loved that driving was out of the equation. If you drank too much, you grabbed a slice and took the subway.

But at 41, with two young sons, I want to be around for them. I lost both my parents by 38. I want to know my grandkids. My mom met my oldest son once. I want more.

Growing up, drinking was like a rite of passage—but I was 15 when someone in my community fell off the back of a truck and died after a night drinking. I knew people who got DUIs, crashed cars, or killed people drunk driving—more than once before I turned 25. It wasn’t a rite of passage. It was a cultural problem.

Kids now seem better. They have more tools, better awareness, and a healthier relationship with it. I’ve known older people who had seizures when they stopped, people who developed liver disease. My oldest uncle drank himself into a coma and died when I was 16. And he went to Stanford and HBS. I believe that culture is changing, for the better.

I love many people who have healthy relationships with alcohol. I just want people to take better care of themselves. For me, it isn’t the way. I may come back in the right circumstances, but after a year without it, I feel better and it feels like the right call for me.

I want to bench 300. I want to run fast again. I want to get leaner and stronger as I age. I hate headaches. I hate stomach aches. And I want my sons to know it isn’t required to have fun.