I'm NEVER drinking alcohol again! 11 reasons why

⛓️‍💥 How ditching drinking set me free! ⛓️‍💥

In September, I celebrated a milestone: two years without beers!

2 years, no beers!

My abstinence from alcohol didn’t arise from an impulse, nor was it a sudden change of heart (though heart-opening happenings and a few heart attacks were in the mix).

Rather, it evolved gradually. Inspired by curiosity and guided by the fullness of life’s ups and downs, I dabbled with different dosages:

• Drinking a lot (high school, college, and into my mid 20s)

• Drinking just a little (middle school and my late 20s)

• Not drinking at all (from birth to age 12, and again from age 28 to now)

The current “not drinking at all” phase is going so well that I'm here to declare, pretty publicly:

I WILL SPEND THE REST OF THIS LIFETIME FREE FROM BOOZE!

Here are 11 reasons why.

---

Reason #1 (The Bottom Line): My life's better without it

I drank alcohol recreationally for 16 years — more than half of my life so far.

Booze was in my blood for most of the peak experiences of my adolescence.

What's wrong with that?

Maybe nothing.

And yet… whenever my mind was quiet enough for my inner voice to be heard, it calmly asked me to stop drinking.

In hindsight, on an intuitive level I knew that I needed to quit.

Why?

Because the sensations I sought from drinking — fun, freedom, ecstasy, bliss, euphoria, relaxation, and social connectedness — always came with a cost. The highs were inevitably followed by the lows: headaches, nausea, exhaustion, and the braindead sensation that the kids these days refer to as “rotting.”

Steep prices to pay for feelings that could be attained by healthier means.

The good news?

After more than 2 years free of alcohol, I can attest that all of those positive experiences are not only accessible without a drop of alcohol — or, for that matter, any psychoactive substance — but they can actually be felt in greater, longer-lasting ways.

What’s working for me:

By practicing yoga & meditation with dedication & devotion, I’ve woven bliss & contentment into the fabric of my life. Here’s how:

• Carefully crafting an ideal daily routine and following it flexibly, not strictly

• Studying spiritual philosophy as taught by the Masters¹

  • Side note: I host a Soul Study meeting on Tuesday mornings. You’re welcome to join!

• Letting the Yamas and Niyamas guide me, morally & ethically

• Practicing sadhana (spiritual practice) twice daily, which includes singing mantras (kirtan), meditation, and yoga asanas (postures)

• Gathering with peaceful community (Satsang)

• Volunteering with the intention of serving the greater good

And yes — life is simply better without hangovers!

😍

Reason #2: I can’t fulfill my total potential with poison in my blood

I’ve been blessed with so much: a loving family, amazing friends, an inquisitive mind, and a healthy body, to name a few.

I choose to honor these gifts by paying them forward to the best of my ability. Ananda Marga’s mission statement resonates deeply with me:

Ananda Marga’s goal is the all-round elevation of human beings, both individually and collectively, in all spheres of human existence: individual, social, economic, intellectual and spiritual.

Their work encompasses a wide range of projects for the welfare of humanity, animals, plants and the whole planet.

Hearing this aspirational calling, I’ve chewed on a few hard truths:

1. We are what we eat & drink (at least physically).

2. Alcohol is literally a carcinogenic toxin.²

3. For years, I spent a couple days a week drinking for fun or recovering from it. The cost — in money, time, and energy — was staggering.

Contemplating these realities burned like a sip of 190 Proof Everclear.

Acknowledging them was a big step toward freeing myself to live fully, with clarity and purpose.

All that goes to say:

to honor my ancestors
to serve my community
to be what I came here to be
I choose to be 
alcohol free!

🌟🌲🌟🌲🌟🌲🌟🌲🌟🌲🌟

Reason #3: The data that I can never un-see about how terrible my tequila sodas were for my health

For two years, I wore a WHOOP band — the best wearable health tracker on the market.

WHOOP showed me a clear view of how my body responded to daily decisions around diet, meal times, workouts & surf sessions, supplements, sleep patterns, and alcohol consumption.

Care to guess which of my behaviors had the most destructive impact on my heart health & sleep quality?

I'm guessing you guessed right…

Yep, alcohol was the worst by far.

Side note: I’m not alone. WHOOP noted on their blog that “of all the behaviors available to record in the WHOOP Journal, drinking alcohol is the one with the single greatest negative impact on next-day recovery.”

Even when I drank “moderately” (2-4 drinks), the damage was clear. My sleep quality, heart rate and variability (HRV), and respiratory rate all suffered.

Motivated by quantifiable achievement, I was determined to keep my “recovery score” as close to 100% as possible. The fact that a few drinks wrecked any hope of waking up well recovered did not sit well.

It was jarring for me to see actual data from my body that put the destructiveness of alcohol in numbers. 📉

It felt personal.

It opened my eyes and ears to be really receptive to:

Reason #4: The podcast that pierced the veil

Dr. Andrew Huberman — a neuroscientist, professor at Stanford School of Medicine, and an excellent podcaster — released a game-changer of an episode in August, 2022: “What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health.”

In it, he reviews the latest & greatest scientific research on alcohol’s effects on the human body and brain.

It’s actually shocking.

I mean, sure, I expected to hear about how unhealthy it is. But I had no idea just how little it takes to cause serious harm.

Here’s what hit hardest:

• Neurodegeneration: the death of brain cells and thinning of the neocortex happens to people even if they only consume 1-2 drinks per day (or 7-14 drinks per week).

  • (Source: “Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank,” 2022)

• Cancer: Alcohol consumption increases the risk of at least 7 different kinds of cancer, including breast cancer and colon cancer.

• Stress regulation myth busted: While people use alcohol to unwind, it actually harms the body’s ability to manage stress on both a cellular and emotional level.

• Accelerated aging: It ages us more rapidly and disrupts our sleep.

At 01:33:36 in the episode, Dr. Huberman answers the question, “Are there any positive health effects of alcohol?” with a resounding “No.”

Even red wine, praised as a source of Resveratrol, offers no net health benefit that’s ssupported by peer-reviewed research.

---

While I listened, resistance bubbled up and questions percolated:

“So, science shows that alcohol only harms me and it has no benefit… does that align with my subjective experience?

What about all the good times I’ve had with my friends & fam while drinking? Would those have been just as fun sober?

Would I be way healthier or smarter today if I’d stopped sooner?

What would change in my life if I stopped drinking altogether?”

At the time, I was particularly keen on healing my snoring, which I wrote about here: “How I healed my snoring”.

Learning that alcohol was wrecking my REM sleep was both a blow and a boon.

Dropping drinking still seemed unfathomable, but my paradigm had shifted. My awareness had been stretched out like an old pair of socks — forever unable to snap back into its original snug fit.

🧦

Reason #5: I've got a good streak going

Not a sip of liquor,
Not a drop of wine,
Never been healing quicker,
Never felt quite this fine.

I've made it this far, 
Two years of freedom: truly good!
Go back to drinking?
Zero reason why I would! 

🌹

Reason #6: My dabblings with sobriety showed me how easy it could be

I dabbled!

First Dabble: Dry July

In 2019, I committed to “Dry July” and had my first experience of a drinking-focused party while abstaining.

My colleagues and I gathered after work at a Manhattan apartment clubhouse to play beer pong and stack cup — two classic drinking games that I’d practiced fervently since high school. This time, I merely and merrily spectated.

Sure, I felt some friendly peer pressure, but when I uttered the magic password, “Dry July”, people were respectful and supportive . ✅

Second Dabble: “0 Benders”

By that winter, frustrated with myself after a few too many hangovers (the months after July were not dry), I set a 90 Day Goal: “0 Benders.”

The success criteria was simple: avoid getting very drunk for 3 months.

❌ I failed.

At my cousin Dani's wedding, a few tequila shots with my fam led to my getting “Buffaloed” by cousin Ben with a very large glass of wine in my right hand — an infraction punishable by an immediate and complete chug.

I blacked out and woke up the next day with a brutal hangover.

Lesson learned (again)!

Third Dabble: Two/Four, No More

From July - September, 2022, I took on a 90-Day Goal of what I called “Two/Four, No More”. The rules: never exceed two drinks on any given day — unless it was a special event, like a wedding, which would raise the cap to four.

That August, I celebrated a wedding in Pensacola (mazel tov, Madge & Phil!) and stuck to my four-drink max. Otherwise, I kept to my two-drink cap. ✅

Reflections from “Two/Four, No More”:

1. Less drinking didn’t mean less fun.

2. I saw drunk people differently. They seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot less than I remembered. The incoherence that I used to perceive as funny and exciting now looked annoying, sad, or boring.

3. No serious hangovers = better mornings. Even mild hangovers from two drinks, especially after late nights, weren’t worth it.

4. I actually felt more confident in social settings. Dancing like a maniac or chatting up anyone and everyone was still the move.

5. I tasted a lifestyle of higher success in many realms:

   1. Strength & flexibility training

   2. Learning languages (Brazilian Portuguese at the time)

   3. Cranking out projects at work and at home

   4. Cultivating community and deepending relationships

---

If you are “sober-curious,” I encourage you to dabble!

You could try Dry January, Dry July, and Sober October. Or set your own challenge, like “Two/Four, No More!”

🦋

Reason #7: Visits to the underworld inspired me to remember

The underworld, in ancient Greek mythology, is an important place to visit — a realm of transformation and profound insight.

Michael Meade artfully elucidates this concept on the Aubrey Marcus Podcast episode titled “The Truth of a Myth”:³

“The ancient Greeks had the myth that the underworld was right there below our feet and you could fall into it at any moment. Feeling sad or depressed was considered falling into the underworld, so they had a populated underworld. It was the source of knowledge.

Two rivers flowed there:

1. The Lethe River (the root word of ‘lethal’ and ‘lethargy’), the river of forgetfulness and unmindfulness.

2. The Mnemosyne River (the word from which we get ‘memory’), the river that goes back to the well of deep memory.

All of us, at times, fall into the Lethe river. It’s bottled and sold and wildly consumed as a ‘spirit of forgetting!’

Forgetting is necessary at certain points, but so is deeply remembering.

The old idea in many indigenous cultures is that each person’s soul is tied to the soul of the world and has access to the deep well of memory. There are things inside us that actually know things that we don’t know.

Mnemosyne is the mother of the Muses, which are all of the arts. Her daughters — the arts — are the antidote to all of the forgetting. They are the sources of inspiration.

From the Muses, we get the words ‘musical’, ‘museum’ (which means ‘house of the Muses’), and ‘amusing'! Comedians, artists, painters, and writers are all inspired by the Muses.

In the state of accepting that we don’t know, all of a sudden there’s room for the Muses to come in and inspire us. We are here to remember that.

To ‘re-member’ means to bring the members that aren’t present into consciousness. Members — parts of ourselves — we can piece them back together, all that has fallen apart and been forgotten.

So this is a really powerful time to be alive if a person can accept that it’s falling apart. There’s an acceleration of calling: having a calling or vocation becomes more possible.

The [remembered] message can get through because of the instability of the environment. The cracking of the shell of culture allows these messages in from the river, Mnemosyne, from memory, from the underworld, from the Muses.

I gained admission to the underworld when one of my dear uncles suffered an unexpected heart attack and spent over 60 days in a coma on his path to, thankfully, surviving. It was scary to watch someone so close to me come so close to death and then stay suspended for months, unconscious, with uncertainty as to the recovery of his mental faculties.

Soon after, another uncle also had a heart attack and thankfully survived.

The realization that 25% of my DNA is shared with two men who had heart attacks in their 50s shook my notion of “the fragility of life” like a snow globe.

Around the same time, I went through a rough breakup that sparked deep soul-searching and inner work. It inspired my “2/4, No More” experiment and ultimately led to my last drink.

A month after that last drink, my cousin Madeleine ended her own young life. The shock, sadness, and grief felt by my family and me were profound, transporting me back down to the underworld.

The dark days I passed on the banks of the Mnemosyne River gifted me with new perspectives on love, purpose, and what it means to live life. Or, were they ancient perspectives that had been there all along, awaiting their remembrance?

A little help from my friends

Through it all, I was blessed with supportive friends, fam, healers, and mentors.

They graciously guided me towards transformative experiences such as:

• my first Vision Quest: 72 hours of fasting & solitude in a forest

• a Transformational Leadership course

• Somatic Release Breathwork

• lots of yoga & meditation

And, indeed, my life transformed!

💫

Reason #8: I've already had enough alcohol-infused fun for one lifetime

Highlights of my drinkin’ days:

#NoRagrets about those first sips in fifth grade of fruity wine coolers pilfered from the family fridge at a friend's cabin in Luray, Virginia.

#NoRagrets about those first sips of cherry vodka, gleefully stolen after school with my fellow 8th grade rascals from an unsuspecting parent's stash.

I’d probably be on some totally unrecognizable parallel branch of the multiverse without having enjoyed countless beer pong showdowns, beer bong races, and high school dance parties powered by 4 Loko.

Beach-weeking in Myrtle, Corolla, and Rehoboth, tailgating Virginia Tech football on Center Street, spring breaking in Kiawah, Cancun, and Key West. Cherished mems with rad friends.

Don't ask me how, but the absurdly delightful debauchery of handle pulls, “slappa-da-bag” boxed wine chugs, and theatrical dunkaroos with my fraternity form an important part of my life’s story.

The shot-skiis at my graduation party, the Jaeger bombs at Hunan Number One, the champagne toasts and keg stands at weddings…

Getting loose for 12 hours with three gringos and three thousand argentin@s until the sun rose over the beach at the Solomun techno show in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

The Bohemian blur of life at Stoke Surf House in Basque Country (Northern Spain) with sagardoa cider always on tap.

One of the memorable characters there was a woman (not pictured) who stunned us all when she revealed that she was in her 40s — not her late 20s or early 30s as we'd all assumed. We stared in fascination; she looked and carried herself with a youthful energy that defied her age.

Her secret? She’d spent a decade alcohol-free and, apparently, free of aging too. Her fountain of youth was the simple avoidance of alc. She planted a sober seed in our minds!

You get the pictures, yeah? Privilege, fun, fun, fun, adventure.

Through it all, the writing was on the wall.

I started keeping a journal during my gap year of backpacking in South America & Europe. A recurring topic was “How ill I feel today due to what I drank last night.”

When I meditated, sat alone in a forest, or lay face down on the floor because I was too hung over to be anything but a blob, my intuition reminded me: “You need to stop drinking.”

With two years of freedom from alcohol under my belt, I've realized that I can easily enjoy myself (which includes tearing up the dance floor without inhibition) — while sober, moreso than I used to while in-TOXIC-ated.

Reason #9: Tinnitus: the message I can literally hear

My ears have been ringing audibly for three years. This condition, called tinnitus, is one I created semi-unconsciously by spending too much time in extremely loud places. Over hundreds of live concerts, house parties, and nights out at bars — usually without earplugs — I damaged my ears enough to develop this perpetual ringing.

The first whisper of warning came in high school, when my friends and I stood inches from a wall of loudspeakers for an entire SOJA show. For the next couple of days, we all experienced near-deafness.

I used to hear the tinnitus during the mornings after parties in college and try to “turn it down” or ignore it. It wasn’t impossible to dismiss, as my body had a plethora of hangover symptoms competing for my attention.

The ringing dissipated during COVID after a long break from bars & parties. When I moved to San Diego, where the lockdown ended way earlier than it did in DC, I got back into loud social scenes and the tinnitus came right back.

To this day, the ringing flares up whenever I spend time in overly loud places, when I’m stressed out, or when I’m sleep-deprived.

For the first year or two, the tinnitus itself was a source of stress and frustration. It was especially noticeable and unpleasant when I lay down to go to sleep.

But over time, I shifted my relationship with it into gratitude and respect.

I now interpret this literally-audible message from my body as a useful signal that tells me when I’m off-track. It helps me course-correct.

It tells me:

• “You’re off going to go deaf if you’re not careful.”

• “You need more sleep.”

• “You’re too stressed out. Maybe it’s time for some yin yoga or nidra?”

What once felt like a curse has become a reminder to live mindfully and prioritize well-being.

Reason #10: 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless

Bogotá, Columbia. Four months into backpacking — gallivanting, to be precise — around Latin America. For the first time in my life, I had become a fully nocturnal creature.

Reveling in the vibrant paisa nightlife, I’d let my daily routine drift into partying until 4:00 AM and sleeping until 4:00 PM.

The hostel I called home doubled as a co-working space. While an international group of digital nomads finished their workdays, I’d shuffle into the common area blurry-eyed, make some breakfast, and fire up the Xbox to play FIFA.

After a week of this, I felt like a lowlife. The voice spoke louder: “Bro… this ain’t you.”

A fellow backpacker from Argentina recommended the movie 180° South. It tells the story of Jeff Johnson’s adventure following the trail blazed by the Patagonia founders, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins, on their epic 1968 road trip down the Pacific coast of the Americas from Ventura, California to Patagonia, Chile.

More than adventure, the film weaves in a poignant critique of humanity’s relationship with nature, tendency toward excessive competitive, and capacity for self-destruction.

It inspired me to get outside on an adventure so I booked a flight to Costa Rica. A week later, I found myself at Dreamsea surf camp, nestled in the lush jungle. I started popping up early for morning yoga and paddling out for all-day surf sessions at Playa Grande, Tamarindo, and Langosta.

As I write this blog post, I realize that the movie subtly guided my way toward fulfilling its subtitle, “Conquerors of the Useless.” In quitting alcohol, I conquered something truly useless!

🏔️🧗🏼‍♂️🌊🏄🏻‍♂️

Reason #11: I didn't catch the second longest wave in the world

“Bro… You're just now going to surf? It was firing earlier.”

8:00 AM in Pavones, Costa Rica:

     too
     late. 

As my fellow surfer emerged from the sea, exalted from his early-morning sesh, the amused pity in his face confirmed my reluctant hunch: the elusive golden window — where swell, wind, and tide dance in rhythm to produce one of the longest and most fickle waves on Earth — had already closed. 😭

How could it be?! My plan had been perfect:

1. Wake up at 4:44 AM

2. Down a tall glass of salty lemon water

3. Eat a banana 🍌

4. Paddle out with the 5:00 AM dawn patrol 🏄🏼‍♂️

5. Shred power turns on the legendary, kilometer-long wave until my legs fell off 🤘🏽

In impeccable hindsight, it's clear that the plan failed due to a critical omission. I’d neglected to prohibit the act of staying up past 2:00 AM pounding beers with Chris and our Chilean amig@s.

Note to self: add “don't stay up drinking all night” as Step #0.

I cringed, I cried, and I trudged along the beach to find my coconut guy (¡pipa fría!) to soothe my well-deserved hangover.

I paddled out anyway and had a still-fun-yet-bittersweet sesh, knowing I'd missed out on the ideal conditions of dawn.

Like so many times in my life, I'd chosen to indulge a little too much in a night of drinking at the steep cost of missing out on a potentially peak experience.

That familiar voice in my head, the one that urges me to fulfill my total potential, had a question for me:

          “…again?”

---

That mediocre morning in Pavones was not the straw that broke the camel's back on my drinking career, but it was certainly a heavy one. I hope you’ve enjoyed the tales and insights offered in this humble blog post of my life since I first boarded that boozy camel! 🐪

Last drink

Hornblower Party Cruise, San Diego Bay, September 3, 2022: Cheers to my last drink with my buddy Max. Truly, a fun way for the sun to set on my drinking days. Earplugs in for protection from tinnitus-boosting bass.

🕺⛵🕺🌊

Q&A

Why do you plan to never drink again?

Though I may not yet have transcended all crudeness or materialistic bondages, I am grateful to accept that alcohol is one that I have given up for good.

I will never drink again because it would create no meaningful benefit to me, my family, my friends, my community, my country, humanity, the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, or the universe. It would, though, cause harm in obvious and subtle ways to all of the above.

I’m done poisoning myself for fun. If fun were quantified, booze would be a net negative. On a Cosmic scale, any enhanced fun would be outweighed by the negative consequences.

What now?

Now, I get to live life to its full awesomeness.

The magical, exhilarating, responsible, heart-open life I live would not be the same without the paradigm shifts I’ve created with the new space that drinking used to fill.

The social lubricant that I used to rely on became unnecessary. The training wheels started getting in the way, so I took them off. Without them, I dance, sing, and write poetry more freely than ever. Friendships deepened, inhibitions dissolved, fears faced, spirit elevated, and emotions integrated.

No more need to intoxicate my brain anymore. No more imbibing of a fluid makes my liver and kidneys cry. Now I get to be of service!

📣 Your call to action! 🚀

Are you re-evaluating your relationship with alcohol? Is there any room for improvement?

Here are a couple ideas for you to experiment with.

• Take on the “2/4, No More” challenge for three months: never drink more than 2 drinks in a day, unless there's some big event where you would normally drink a lot, in which case don't drink more than 4 drinks.

  • If that seems too easy, you could modify it to a cap of 1 drink/day.

• Commit to a One Year No Beer challenge.

• Show up to an AA meeting near your home and listen to the stories of your friendly neighborhood alcoholics.

• Contemplate and journal about these topics:

  • your relationship with alcohol

  • the emotions you feel before, during, and after drinking

  • the challenges you experience with the habits you have around alcohol

  • how your self-control fluctuates and where it tends to fall short

  • how peer pressure affects you

  • your consistency in honoring your commitments — not just to other people but to yourself!

• Choose curiosity. Be open to learning something new about yourself. Observe your habits without harsh judgements and without any inkling of fault, blame, guilt, or shame.

• Share your observations with trusted confidants.

• Set 30-day goals and meet weekly with an accountability partner.

Resources

• Todd Andersons’s Reel, “Alcohol and Sleep do not mix…not even a little bit”

• “What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health,” an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast

• Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol, a book by Holly Whitaker

• “The End of Alcohol”, an article published in WIRED Magazine

• “Accountability Partners Are Great. But “Success” Partners Will Change Your Life”, an article on Medium with this line:

  • “Publicly committing your goals to someone gives you at least a 65% chance of completing them. However, having a specific accountability partner increases your chance of success to 95%.”

• John Mayer on Quitting Alcohol (3 minute YouTube vid) where he shares his “most amazing last night of my life drinking story” at Drake’s 30th birthday party

• “Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank”, a study published in 2022

• “How I healed my snoring”, a blog post by yours truly

• “11 Habits for Excellent Sleep”, another blog post by yours truly

1. Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti, Paramhansa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar Giri, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Muhammad, Rumi, Jesus Christ, Moses, etc.

2. Science is illuminating the extent of drinking’s damage, like by showing us that what most people consider “light or moderate drinking” actually causes brain damage.

3. Michael Meade talks about the rivers of the underworld 19 minutes into the episode (here’s a direct link to it on YouTube)