Why have I gone off booze?

Something very odd has happened over the last year and it feels fitting, it being Go Sober for October right now, to tell you about it.

First it was wine.  It started tasting funny and the sleepless nights that occurred when I drank too much of it became too much.  Then it was prosecco… although that one is complicated.  I’ve never really liked prosecco but always felt I was letting the side down by saying so.  It’s just so easy when gathering with a bunch of pals to bring a bottle of fizz or two.  Alongside never really liking it, it also started to really bloat me and make me feel uncomfortable.

At least, I thought, I have my beloved wheat beer.  That form of booze is sure to hold firm whilst other drinks fall by the wayside.  But then, at the beginning of the year, I went off all beer too.  It was like the beer was suddenly laced with nail varnish remover.

Now I know, logically, that I can’t taste the alcohol in a drink, but suddenly my head was telling me that I could taste it and it was horrid.  I did a taste test with a booze free beer and an alcoholic one of the same type and the difference was massive.  I even did a blind tasting, just to try and eliminate some of my preconceptions, and even then, the booze-free was nice and the boozy one tasted revolting.

I’ve wanted for a while to cut down on my alcohol intake.  It was never particularly high, but often over the recommended weekly units and I had definitely developed a habit of using a beer as a reward at the end of the day: a hard day, a successful day, just-because-it’s-wednesday day… I didn’t need a special reason, I just wanted a taste that I’d come to associate with reward, switching off and resting.

So there was a desire to cut down.  Only, when I did abruptly cut down rather than delighting in this surprise healthy move, I felt utterly robbed!  I felt the choice had been taken from my mind by my body and there was absolutely no satisfaction in it.  I hadn’t worked hard, applied willpower or anything of the sort.  I’d been forced into it and that made me extremely resentful.

That was back at the beginning of the year and now, as we wallow in the midst of autumn, I am slowly coming to acclimatise and reflect on what has changed as a result.  I’m certain this switch among many others of recent years (hello, hairloss!) have happened as a result of the peri-menopause and my constantly dancing hormones, so I think I know why it’s happening.

I’ve got to admit, I’m delighted not to have hangovers anymore, or the fretful sleep-broken nights that booze was increasingly heaping on me, but I can’t say I’ve felt any massive health benefits other than that, although science and my body would probably disagree.  My social life has been impacted somewhat as I can no longer willingly stay up late.  I reach a cut off point around 11pm when I suddenly stop having fun and crave my bed.  Whilst I’m well aware this is good for me, I miss the wild abandon of a “f**k it” moment that comes part way through a good evening that leads to that extra bottle and a messy, hilarious kitchen disco.  I’m still pondering how I can replace that with something booze free.

I regularly have a taste of various drinks to see if it’s still the same and on our summer holiday, where there was a distinct lack of booze free options, I did have some booze.  One or two were fine but the one night I had a couple more, it didn’t feel good at all.  And I mean it didn’t feel good in the moment, let alone the morning after. 

A surprise discovery was that I do still like the taste of Limoncello.  Most surprising and also something to feel slightly uneasy about: it’s not exactly the most sophisticated of drinks, is it?  A drink associated with a generous and/or creepy gift from a waiter in a cheesy italian restaurant.  But there you go, I do like a shot or two of that, which gives me faith that when Christmas rolls around, I may enjoy a lemony cocktail or maybe an amaretto sour.  That would be a nice treat.

I’ve gone through a lot of booze free choices this year, so my solid recommendations would be Hazy AF 0.5% as a beer from brewdog.  An alcohol free beer that doesn’t have that weird aftertaste a lot of them have.  For lager, there is only one which reigns supreme above all others: Corona 0%.  It is remarkable how nice it is.  I also am a big fan of a 0% Tanqueray gin.

As with a lot of my personal development stuff, this story is one about acceptance.  Having the choice of giving up booze taken from me was hugely annoying, but it is, I know, a good thing.  Finding acceptance in that then allows me to enjoy and explore this new way of being… especially the new way of socialising.  It feels good to finally stop butting up against what’s happened and let the good times flow again!