Why I Quit Drinking

I want to start by saying this: I am in no way trying to shame anyone who chooses to drink. This is simply my experience and my perspective. Take what resonates, and leave what doesn’t.

I grew up in a family where alcohol was never a big presence. My parents drank occasionally, but it wasn’t something I was regularly exposed to or influenced by. That changed when I went to college.

I attended what many would call a “party school,” and I’ll be very honest — I went all in. Drinking and partying became a regular part of my life, and I took it much further than I ever should have. There’s honestly about a year of my life that I don’t remember clearly. While it felt fun for a short period of time, it didn’t take long for the consequences to catch up with me.

I gained 50 pounds. Yes — a freshman 50.
I was failing my classes.
My relationships with friends and family began to suffer.
I slept until 3 p.m. almost every day.
I ate poorly, didn’t move my body, and spent hours doom-scrolling.

In short, I was deeply depressed and had very little quality of life.

At the time, I didn’t see it that way. I thought I was just “going through a phase” or living the typical college experience. But eventually, something had to change.

I ended up meeting with a counselor at my school, and she introduced me to a one-credit class called College Success. It sounds simple, but that class changed my life. One of the main things we discussed was the concept of the victim mindset— and it hit much closer to home than I expected.

I realized that I saw myself as the victim in my own story. I blamed my circumstances on the world, on past trauma, on my family, on my friends — on anything except myself. And while many of those things did influence me, the truth was hard to ignore: I was responsible for the choices that led me there.

Everyone on this planet is dealt a different deck of cards. Some people start out with an incredible hand, while others begin in really difficult places. But we are all given the opportunity, every single day, to make choices that either move us closer to the life we want — or further away from it.

For a long time, I made the wrong choices over and over again, and they led me down a dark path. When I finally took accountability and acknowledged that my choice to drink and party every day wasn’t serving me, everything began to shift.

It turns out, making better choices is a lot easier when you’re not drunk.