A Year Without Alcohol

It’s been over a year since I’ve had alcohol. The last drink I had was when I was in the Philippines at the end of February in 2020. I didn’t set out to go a year without alcohol, I had a bottle of whiskey and three bottles of red wine in my apartment in Korea at the time.  Rather, a series of situations and circumstances led me to not drinking and once I had continued on that path I made the conscious decision to see if I could go a year. Kind of like that time I wanted to see if I could go on a four day fast.

I arrived back to Korea from the Philippines around March 3rd and ten days later I was scheduled for shoulder surgery. After the surgery I was in a sling for 6 weeks and I wasn’t going to drink while in it. It was already extremely uncomfortable to sleep with and I could only sleep on my back. I was worried that if I drank I might have rolled onto my side and slept on it. Once the sling officially came off, sleeping was still extremely uncomfortable and I continued sleeping with it for a few weeks. Also, recovering from shoulder surgery prevented me from running for a couple of months. Once I could run again, I focused on building up my stamina and legs. I had no desire to drink and interfere with that.

While I was recovering from surgery, the world was slowly awakening to the Covid pandemic. In Korea, they took seriously it from the onset and my school required me to tell them if I traveled anywhere on the weekends. One characteristic of living in rural Korea is that all of my friends lived in other towns and cities between 30 minutes to an hour away. It didn’t seem right to go anywhere unnecessarily while my school was keeping tabs. Also, by my third year there most of my friends had left except two: one lived 30 minutes away and the other an hour. So, if I was meeting them, it was usually for lunch or to go for a hike rather than to drink, which is what we did during my first two years when there were a lot more of us. We’d plan weekends away in cities and go out to celebrate someone’s birthday or just to go out.

When July came around and I decided I was going to graduate school, I also decided that I was going going to take the GRE. From the end of July to the end of September I studied seven days a week and every other Saturday morning I took a practice exam. Like with running, I had no desire to interfere or impede my studying by drinking. By the time October came around, I made up my mind to go a year without alcohol. I realized I don’t really need it in my life. I’d rather get up early on a Saturday or Sunday and go for a hike or do a planned activity. I don’t want to waste a day waking up late or not really being able to do something because I’m hungover. I don’t want alcohol to be the conduit of my confidence and the reason for me to do something. I don’t want it to engender drunk arguments between friends or family or be the seed of a problem in a relationship. I’ve never relied or depended on drinking, but I’ve lived the last twelve years of my life with alcohol, maybe it’s time to live the next few without it.