Holidays Come with Stress — Alcohol Can Make that Stress Worse

You may want to consider passing on that second eggnog drink, or even the first.

“Enjoying life, happy AF.”

“Feeling awesome AF.”

“Four months AF.”

Wait — four months . . . “as fuck?” That can’t be right.

Oh wait, I get it! AF is “Alcohol Free!”

This occurs to me as I am perusing the “I Am Sober” app during my waking minutes in bed. I stumbled on this app that I downloaded a few months ago, but had since forgotten about. Evidently, a bunch of these people are grateful as fuck to be AF.

Wow. Am I missing out?

I did string together 13 days AF in August, and felt great doing so. But then I eventually got back into a pattern of drinking half to most days of the week, because it was just too easy to do it. Is that a reason?

The way I drank on Thanksgiving last week (too much), and how I felt afterwards (shitty), made me wonder if I should go alcohol-free again. Not only that, my moments of irritability have been rising, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the booze. Also, the belly bulge staring back at me in the yoga studio mirror yesterday was less than inspiring.

I can’t help but wonder, is alcohol actually doing me any favors?

Funny thing, the app has still been counting my days since August, as if I’ve been AF. It says I’ve been sober for 4 months, 2 days, and seventeen hours! I have also presumably saved $1,116 by not drinking, because I am no longer spending 9 dollars per day on alcohol. Nine dollars was the quick number I put in the app back when it asked me how much I spent daily on alcohol. Not that I drank daily — I didn’t and don’t. But nine dollars is the cost of a decent cocktail, and while somedays I have none, somedays I have two or three drinks. Also, some weeks I buy an expensive as fuck bottle of whisky, to make my heart feel better.

Really?

Turns out, alcohol doesn’t really fix things. I recently started reading a book that expounds on this, along with the fact that alcohol does not help mood, memory, physical health, or any situation, really.