She once thought drinking made life richer, but seeing clearly showed her the truth: being present is the real good time and worth everything. She did not recognize the pattern until it was impossible to ignore. At ten, during a Miss Pre-teen Cleveland interview, she answered a judge’s question about growing up with a line that made the room laugh: she could not wait to sit in the garage with her parents and drink beer. It sounded cute then. No one blinked, no one thought to ask why alcohol felt like a ticket to belonging.
Her earliest years were split between grandparents who did not drink and a wider circle of adults who did. By the time she was a teenager, most friends saw alcohol as a shared adventure. Weekends, games, and secrets were sealed with bottles. It looked ordinary. Later, as an ambitious young adult with a tight crew, life ran on “work hard, play hard.” They raced sailboats, joined leagues, volunteered, and capped everything off with drinks. She was reliable at work, never late, had no DUI, and had no apparent chaos. She could not see then how every plan, trip, and goal quietly bent around the next round. In her late twenties and thirties, the fallout around her grew louder.
Friends slid from drinks to drugs. Some were arrested, some lost jobs, some died in crashes. There were suicides and overdoses. Each loss was marked the same way they marked everything else: with a toast. She visited friends in jail, drove others to court-ordered meetings, and still told herself it did not concern her.
Culture made it easy to stay blind. Sitcoms and movies turned drinking into a punchline. Social feeds traded jokes about “mom wine time.” Friends egged each other on to take one more shot. Playdates came with champagne. Fancy dinners ended with heavy heads and dull mornings. Vacations revolved around bars, blurry memories, and laughter that hid regret. It all passed as usual until her life cracked open at once: a divorce, a job shakeup, a friend’s death, another friend’s suicide, and the ups and downs of blending a new family. Those shocks pushed her to ask hard questions about what alcohol was really doing in her life.
She ordered a book about alcohol and freedom, opened it with a glass of wine in hand, and closed it with a decision she did not expect. She put the glass down and did not pick it up again. Cravings did not follow. Clarity did. With clear eyes, she began to notice everything she had missed. She saw friends struggling behind jokes. She saw untreated anxiety and depression. She saw smart, capable people held back by hangovers and habits. She noticed kids being brushed off by parents who were too foggy to listen. She saw how the pandemic had poured fuel on the problem. People started asking her for the name of that book.
At a hockey game with her boys, the cameras zoomed in on fans chugging beer, and the crowd cheered. Then the screen showed a man chugging water, and the boos came out. Her eight-year-old rolled his eyes. He saw it too. Children pay attention. They learn from how we return home at night, how long we sleep in, and how short our patience is the next morning. They see the party and the silence that follows. Quitting changed her social life. Fewer party invites arrived. Sometimes she missed the buzz of being included. But quiet nights at home surprised her with something better: early pancakes, old shows under a blanket, long talks with her kids, and friendships built on real conversation instead of shots.
The drama eased. Her energy returned. Love felt steadier. Two years on, she does not miss the old rhythm. The gifts have outweighed any losses. She learned you do not need a diagnosis, a crash, or a crisis to question your relationship with alcohol. You can simply want more. You can choose to end the cycles you grew up with. You can decide that the life you wish to live needs your full attention.
