Three years sans shiraz.

Not that I’m counting or anything. But I am. Three Augusts ago I decided, in the heat of a pandemic summer, maybe the unlikeliest time to forgo a soothing substance, that I would finally listen to the whisper of my spirit and say bye bye to the booze.

No calamitous event preceded my decision. I didn’t have a problem with it, as one might assume when you hear somebody’s given up alcohol. It just didn’t feel right anymore to pour kerosene into my body, so to speak. Ethanol, which is present in alcoholic drinks, is a neurotoxin and I’ve long considered the whole bit about moderation being the key to be a straight-up lie. The World Health Organization in January declared there is no safe amount of alcohol.

How could any amount of poison be good for us? Are we all living in a real-life “Flowers in the Attic?” You know the 1979 gothic V.C. Andrews novel, where the mom slowly adds rat poison to the food she feeds her kids in the attic. Is that all of us? You scoff, but consider. There are a lot of companies, businesses and others who rely on us having a cocktail or five and making it a daily and weekly part of our lives and pretty much all of our celebrations.

My friends, the world would be a gentler, kinder place if we did two things: drank less booze and got more sleep.

I’d long since developed a strong distaste for that feeling of being even the tiniest bit intoxicated. I don’t enjoy that fuzzy-headed feeling, quickly followed by alcohol-induced grumpiness and exhaustion, even though you’re not going to get a good night’s sleep thanks to the alcohol. I really don’t know how anybody’s body can tolerate it past the age of 30, and even that might be a stretch. I started to notice its deleterious effects in my late 20s.

So I banished the tipple. And it’s one of my most favorite choices in life. If only I’d made it five years ago. Maybe 10. I was ready to give it up back then, too. I just didn’t.

It takes a lot of energy and the right frame of mind to change or ingrain a habit, as I’m sure you’re aware. But somehow I had it three summers ago. Maybe I was holding onto a larger chunk of my daily energetic allotment because I wasn’t working in the office around people during the pandemic — this ambivert only has so much social capital. I wasn’t teaching yoga anymore, so wasn’t interacting with humans there. And there were few to zero social obligations. Maybe quitting drinking in a pandemic was an ideal time to give it the old heave-ho.

Whatever the reason, it stuck. I originally thought about doing 30 days alcohol-free, much like many do during Dry January or Sober October. But then 30 days came and went and I was enjoying myself too much to stop.

I’ve always favored delayed gratification. And this was that. I’ll go 45 days, I told myself, and then I’ll have a pumpkin-flavored IPA. But when that deadline rolled around, I thought OK, maybe I’ll do three months, then six months, then what about a whole year?

At some point I simply stopped thinking about it. I knew alcohol would no longer have any sort of presence in my life. And it was totally fine. The thought didn’t make me despair. Quite the opposite. The thought of not drinking ever again fills me with a certain peacefulness and contentment. I’ll never worry about saying or doing something dumb — a regular occurrence in my 20s — or getting home safely. I won’t have to worry about the effects of ethanol on my organs. Or think about how much of my income is being allotted to something that only harms me. Or how many calories I’m using up when I could be eating something much more dopamine-inducing, like my beloved popcorn or roasted cauliflower.

I could, of course, change my mind anytime. I’m a grown human. I didn’t have a problem with it, and likely still wouldn’t. But I don’t think I will anytime soon. My body has given me a clear verdict on the substance and I like to honor her wishes.