I quit drinking for an entire year

I’ve been sober for an entire year now. Here’s how I feel.

Back in March of 2025, I decided to quit drinking.

This is something I’ve mentioned on here a few times, mostly in passing, and since I’ve finally made it a full year I figure it’s about time I gave it a full article.

The entire thing started with a diet. My pants were starting to feel a little tight around my waist, so I searched out a good diet and training program. I ended up going with one from Muscle and Strength, called “12 Week Fat Destroyer“. The program has a strict carb control regimen, so in the interest of actually following the instructions I decided it would be best to take a break from drinking alcohol for the 12 weeks. I wasn’t an alcoholic or anything, I usually only drank on Saturdays. But those beers add up. A bottle of Yuengling Lager (or as Frosty would call it, “the good stuff”) is about 140 calories and 12 grams of carbs. That doesn’t sound like much, until you’ve drank 10 of them, ingesting 1,400 empty calories for 120 grams of carbs. Basically half a day’s allowance for the diet’s “high carb” day.

After the 12 weeks were up, I asked myself if I really missed drinking. To my surprise, the answer was no.

So I kept going. Or not going, I guess.

An entire year later, and I still haven’t touched alcohol, nor have I really wanted to.

I’ll admit, it’s presented a few challenges at times. Going to parties or other social gatherings kind of sucks now, because everyone else around you is drinking and loosening up while you’re still sober. Which means you’re stuck being the tard wrangler for a bunch of drunken nitwits. Our company Christmas party in particular was a headache and a half. And of course, you’re also now the designated driver for a car full of said drunken nitwits. No, I’m not taking your dumb drunk asses to Wawa. We’re going the fuck home and I’m going the fuck to bed.

Going to bars when you’re sober isn’t as bad as I had expected it to be, but it’s still a mixed bag. A lot of companies are making non-alcoholic beers now, some of which taste exactly like their alcoholic counterparts. Heineken Zero in particular is surprisingly good. And bartenders don’t seem to look at you like you’re a weirdo for ordering them.

Unfortunately, a lot of smaller bars don’t keep non-alcoholic beer in stock. One bar only had non-alcoholic Busch. I wouldn’t even drink Busch with alcohol, so I’m definitely not touching it without. So you’re forced to sip on ginger ale all night, unless you’re bold enough to ask for a Shirley Temple as a man. At that point I might as well just lop my balls off.

I’m also not great with large crowds, and not having a liquid crutch to rely on to temper my anxiety made some gatherings difficult. A few months ago, one of my friends and his band did a show at the Milkboy in downtown Philly. The venue is standing room only and has a maximum capacity of 200. They sold the place out, and then some. I ended up leaving after about an hour, because the crowd became too much. No matter where I stood it seemed like I was in the middle of a thoroughfare or a mosh pit. If I had been drinking, I’d have probably been front and center of the stage slam dancing with everyone else. There’s a reason alcohol is called “liquid courage”.

Another annoying downside to quitting drinking was having to explain to everyone that my choice came from a physical fitness perspective and not because I got drunk and did something bad. After hearing “What did you do that made you want to quit?” for the tenth time, you want to smack someone. I know that a lot of people have serious drinking problems, but why is it so unbelievable that I got tired of spending every Sunday morning feeling like hungover shit? People assumed that there was some kind of ulterior motivation. These were people who I’ve known for years, people who should have known me better but apparently didn’t. I’ve never driven drunk, I’ve never cheated on my (current) girlfriend, and I can count on one hand the number of fist fights that I’ve gotten into while drinking. Who the hell do these people think I am, Ted Kennedy?

The social aspects of drinking aside, there were more than enough benefits from quitting.

The biggest benefit, for me, was that I could now work out on weekends.

For the last several years, I typically avoided working out on Saturdays and Sundays. Since alcohol inhibits protein synthesis and muscle building, I didn’t see any point to hitting the weights on Saturday morning, then drinking later that night. Come Sunday morning, I usually felt like shit, so any workout would be half-assed and pointless.

Now that I wasn’t drinking, I had two extra days to train. I ended up incorporating running into my training, and within six months I was training for a half marathon, which I ran in November. Saturdays have become my long run day, and every Saturday I typically run around 10 miles, sometimes more. I also started including Sunday in my weight training schedule, which gives me an extra day to run. So I’m lifting weights Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, then running on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. If I was still drinking, I wouldn’t be able to do this.

I’ve also noticed a physical difference. As I write this at the beginning of February, I’m just wrapping up a bulking phase, which I started in September. I started at 180 lbs, and I’m now sitting around 200 lbs. Naturally, some of this is fat, but for the most part this has been one of the leanest bulks I’ve ever done. My abs are still somewhat visible, and I don’t look puffy like I usually do during a bulk.

There’s the obvious factor of all the running that I’ve been doing, but not consuming alcohol has definitely played a part here. As I mentioned before, alcohol inhibits protein synthesis to some extent, so by not consuming it I’m probably building a bit more muscle than I was before. Alcohol, beer in particular, has also been shown to create a layer of subcutaneous fat. This stems from alcohol inhibiting fat burning and the amount of calories in beer. Of course, you can get this visceral fat from non-alcoholic sources, but alcohol is the most common cause.

Another benefit was saving money. Now, I’m not exactly hurting for money these days, but I still try not to spend wastefully. Chalk it up to my lower-middle class upbringing.

Around these parts, a case of beer costs close to $25. A bottle of liquor costs similar. In my 20’s, I was going through one or two cases of beer a week, and hammering a fifth of vodka or rum every other night. I was spending close to $200 a week on alcohol. Longtime readers might remember me posting my liquor collection:

This was BEFORE a restock. I was hitting this collection pretty much nightly.

Once I hit my 30’s I slowed down a lot. But I was still blowing a bunch of money on booze. I’d go to the hooch store in Jersey (Roger Wilco) looking to just buy a case of beer. Then I’d browse the liquor selection, and before I knew it I was walking out with $100 in various liquors, which I used to play bartender for any people who came over that weekend. I would still do this even though I was only drinking on Saturdays. Despite drinking only once a week, I came pretty damn close to rebuilding that liquor collection from the picture. For some reason, I never considered this “wasteful spending”. Yet I’d go out of my way to buy snacks at Aldi’s because the name-brand snacks at ShopRite cost more. Go figure.

My point is, drinking can add up financially, and it can get fairly expensive fairly quickly. I’ll admit, my habits here probably don’t reflect the habits of the average person. People who drink a six pack on the weekend probably aren’t going to bankrupt themselves. But since I quit, I’m obviously not buying booze anymore, and I’m saving hundreds of dollars a month.

One of the benefits of not consuming alcohol that I constantly see being touted is a marked improvement in sleep. As someone who’s suffered from chronic insomnia for over 10 years, I personally haven’t seen any difference in sleep quality since I stopped drinking. But don’t worry, I’m sure that the real difference will come after I’ve been sober for two years. Then when I reach year two, we can move the goalposts to three years.

All in all, it’s been an alright experience, and I’m kind of glad that I quit. I miss some of the social aspects of it, but the other aspects more than make up for it. For me, the benefits weren’t life changing or anything, but I also didn’t have a serious drinking problem. I imagine that someone with a serious drinking problem would benefit from quitting way more than I would.

I may or may not loosen my restrictions over time for special occasions, I’m still not sure yet. I’m not going to push the “sober lifestyle” on anyone, but if you find yourself feeling like shit after a night of drinking, or you just want to up your fitness game a little bit, maybe try giving yourself a month or two off from the drinking to see how you feel.

It’s definitely worth a shot.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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