Why I started Drinking Again, Getting Honest // Alison's Notebook

Hey guys! I want to share with you all why I started drinking again, since a lot of my posts in the past talked about why I don't drink, and gave tips on how not to drink.

After watching the series collaboration between Bunny Meyers (Grav3yardGirl) and Shane Dawson, I felt like I wanted to start posting again.

But first…I need to come clean.

In the past, I've talked about why I stopped drinking and didn't drink for 4 or 5 years. Welp, I started drinking again a couple years ago and now I feel I should let you know why I started drinking again.

I know this is a polarizing topic, so I wanted to give you some background and talk about why I made the decision to stop, and why I started again.

Table Of Contents

Why I Started Drinking Again // Background

In my mid-twenties, I went to a therapist to try to figure out a repeated pattern of behavior I didn't like about myself that mostly manifested in my relationships with men.

I intuitively knew there was something wrong I needed to work on, but I didn't know how to get to the bottom of it. I had lunch with a girlfriend and she kept recommending I talk to a therapist about it. Looking back, I think she had some ideas on why I was doing what I was doing, but didn't feel comfortable or like she knew me well enough to be so direct.

So, I decided to try therapy, and it changed me life. If you've never tried therapy before, I highly recommend it.

The therapy I tried was in person, but recently I tried BetterHelp online counseling and I had a great experience.

(I may receive a commission for purchases made through the links provided on this post at no cost to you.)

While I was in therapy, the counselor asking me about my drinking. And at the time, I drank quite a lot. Not only that, but I didn't realize how much I drank and how much I acted out with men until I wrote it down in a journal for a week.

It was really eye-opening, and when the therapist suggested I go to 12-step meetings, I decided to try.

Giving Up Alcohol for Four Years

The process of quitting drinking was incredibly difficult. And for years, that's what stopped me from trying to drink again. I just kept thinking…I don't want to go through all that again.

But, I was also going through a lot at the time. I was digging things up out of my soul that I had never talked about or thought about before. Painful memories, the reality that I didn't love or like myself, unhealthy thinking patterns I developed over many years.

I think I was a problem drinker, and alcohol was the bandaid that was keeping me together. When I ripped the bandaid off, it hurt. But it also helped me to do some really hard work on myself.

I did 12-step recovery programs for about 4 years, and didn't drink at all for 4 years. I was sober during my wedding and a lot of other life events and had a blast.

Giving Up In General

When I got sober, I gave up a lot of other things as well. And when my dad died unexpectedly, I decided to give up my church.

My church did a lot for me. The mentors there are the reason I went to college and started saving money in a retirement account—aka, life skills I hadn't learned anywhere else. My church's influence in my life is the reason I've been so fortunate in my career and why I have developed so many awesome skills.

But, my church also controlled a lot of aspects of my life that I realized I wasn't ok with. They controlled who I dated, where I worked, who I talked to, what I did for fun, how I thought.

And I became increasingly uncomfortable with this control.

When my dad died, I gave myself permission to follow my intuition, even though I knew it was going to hurt a lot of people.

And it did—but I grew a lot.

Fast forward a few years later, and I started to wonder if they had controlled a lot of my opinions about my alcohol abuse as well. Don't get me wrong, I knew I had a problem drinking in my twenties, but I also wondered if the internal conflict that the church created within me was one of the reasons I drank heavily.

Trying It Out

So, just like I decided to try NOT going to church—a big scary change that ended up really helping me in the long run—I decided to try drinking again. Even if it went poorly, at least I would have tried.

I want to point out here that I don't necessarily recommend this for anyone else who has had problems with alcohol. Because quite frankly, it may not go well. And if it goes poorly, it will be extremely difficult for you to get back on the wagon again.

I took a few sips of beer, and then threw away the can. Then I waited a few days. Was I craving alcohol?

The answer was “no”, I wasn't. So I'd give it a try and then wait…and if I felt ok, I'd try some more. Until finally one day I told my husband about this experiment, and asked him if we could have a glass of wine together. He was hesitant but supportive, and the rest is history.

I took my time and I went slow, and that's the story of why I started drinking again. It was just what was right for me, and I felt like it was the final full circle step of the journey I began through counseling.

Summary // Why I Started Drinking Again

I have other alcoholics in my family. So I always want to be careful and supportive.

Recently, my husband and I stopped buying alcohol during the week. A glass of wine or two with dinner really adds up over the week, and the recommended amount that women can safely drink was recently lowered from one glass a day to about 4 glasses or less a week.

I want to write about this more some time, but after two years of drinking again, I'm starting to drink a lot less. Not because I think I need to go into recovery again, but because I feel like I'm inclined to use it as a crutch—and today, I prefer mindfulness and self-care to shortcuts and crutches.

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