“Alcohol is a social condition and if you no longer satisfy it you can quickly be cast aside”: Elena, 36, tells how she stopped drinking

For as long as I can remember, I have always drunk “social” alcohol, the same with cigarettes. That is to say that I only drank, or almost, when I was with friends in the evening.

Having social drinking

Even when I was at university it meant a lot, because we went out a lot and, even on the days we didn’t go out, there was always a beer or a drink after class (sometimes quite early elsewhere, when we left class at 4pm, we would could have had a bottle of wine or a few pints by 7pm).

It was never really a problem for me, because I wasn’t even drunk, I never drank too much, it just felt really weird to drink a coke or something at those times.

Since we didn’t have much money, it was more interesting to drink beer rather than soft drinks.

Because the bar we frequented at the time had happy hours, as they call them (this was over fifteen years ago, but I imagine it still works the same way).

Alcohol and physical activity don’t go well together

On the other hand, I am a fairly sporty person (I played volleyball at a competitive level) and those university years during which I went out and drank almost every day, except when I went home to my parents at the weekend (albeit), made me ha had to put volleyball and physical activity aside. I only played a few informal games with friends from where I come from.

But I felt that my physical form was no longer the same. I was much more tired before the match than before. The connection wasn’t so much with alcohol but rather with the courses that took up a lot of space in my life (the finals, in my memory, were quite consecutive).

Awareness after hospitalization

In the third year of my degree I was hospitalized for a few days for a stomach ulcer. I then had to adjust my diet and was forced to ban alcohol for a while.

At first, to be honest, it was quite difficult. I had a real lack that I hadn’t identified until that moment, it really scared me. Then I felt like I was a bit of a troublemaker when I didn’t drink. Mechanically I was in a less festive mood and went home early.

Some people in college ended up not inviting me to parties because I was, quote, “less fun than I used to be with his problem.” Nice, isn’t it…?

It was quite difficult to live with. Even though my friends, the real ones, were there for me, I understood that alcohol is a social condition and that we could quickly be cast aside if we no longer fulfilled it. I didn’t want to depend on that anymore. I found that, in the end, it had generated social relationships that were not honest and true.

“I have noticed the positive impact on my health of stopping drinking alcohol”

Then, I noticed the positive impact on my health of quitting alcohol. I felt less tired, in a better mood. Of course I no longer had a hangover.

Because whatever we say, even if it’s a drink or two, the consequences are always harder than when we don’t drink.

In the same period I signed up for a volleyball club not far from my university, and the fact of starting over did me a great deal of good. Little by little, I no longer wanted to drink.

In fact, I ended up realizing that I didn’t like beer after drinking gallons of it for three years (ironic, right?).

Reconsider your relationship with alcohol

Those times are long gone from us. But I have since re-established my connection and relationship with alcohol. Although I stopped drinking alcohol completely for the two years following the ulcer, I then started drinking again, but this time with the intention of drinking only when I felt like it and not out of social obligation. And with the idea of ​​discovering, for example, good wines, associations with food, etc.

Today I have a very healthy relationship with alcohol. I only drink when I want, the alcohol I like (like white wine or red wine). I haven’t drunk beer for years and I never consume strong alcohol, the taste of which I find disgusting.

I feel much better since then. And finally, over time, my circle of friends has also refined itself to center around people I genuinely enjoy spending time with and for whom it’s mutual, regardless of alcohol or not.

Because even though I’m fifteen years older, yes, I still notice that in the environment of my friends, alcohol can sometimes remain a condition for many people’s social moments… And it’s a shame.

I don’t have children, but I want them, and I think the day that happens, I will have a very quick discussion with them about this topic, when they are old enough.

Because for me this unhealthy relationship with alcohol also starts very early in our lives, often in adolescence and can cast the dice on a relationship that is very healthy or unhealthy.