Lessons From Quitting Drinking in College

Three-quarters of the way through my junior year, my college partying “fun” was at an all-time high and so too was my depression. I also somehow had managed to get strep pretty much every month so it’s safe to say I was not doing a good job of taking care of myself. I hit rock bottom, details of which I’ll leave for another story, and decided that I had to make some changes. My two main starting points to getting healthy and happy were 1. I found myself a therapist and 2. I decided to be sober for one year.

The therapist one was obvious, I had depression I needed that support. The not-drinking one had some people confused. From the outside looking in you would not say I drank more than any of my friends or college peers, in fact, compared to many I drank considerably less. I wasn't the friend that ended up crying every time they were drunk. I wasn’t the friend that made regrettable decisions with men because they’d been drinking. I didn’t have to finish a bottle of wine once I’d started. In general, I was the friend that ended up taking care of other drunker people. I didn’t see alcohol as the problem, and I still don’t per se, but I did see that drinking was the reason I had been able to kid myself into thinking I was “handling” my depression for so long. The “fun” was a welcomed distraction from feeling the full extent of my emotions.

Many would not choose to forego alcohol in their senior year of college. It certainly had its challenges but not for the reasons you might think. I didn’t crave it nor was I ever extremely tempted to break my commitment to myself but it was hard because it created a lot of change. Change is hard whether it is good or bad. I credit that year as a catalyst for my personal growth as it taught me many lessons that became foundation blocks to creating a life I am truly content with.

When you change not all your friends can stay with you. That’s a sad truth.

Some couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to go to bars for the third night in a row and I noticed I slowly stopped getting invited to nights out. And that makes sense, when you no longer stay to the end of parties, feature in the *drama* or hilarious messy stories, or are no longer the person passing shots around…

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