What Do I Do in the Evening Instead of Drinking?
One of the reasons stopping drinking can feel difficult has nothing to do with what is in the glass.
It is what that drink means.
For me, that first drink at the end of the day made me feel safe.
It was comforting.
The day is done. I can switch off.
So if somebody had simply told me to go home and drink something else instead, they would have missed the point.
I wasn't only replacing lager.
I had to replace what drinking did for that part of my day.
The evening can feel like the difficult bit
A lot of people can imagine getting through the morning without drinking.
They can go to work.
Stay busy.
Get things done.
Then 5pm or 6pm arrives.
The part of the day that has always meant:
Now I can have a drink.
That can be after work.
After the children have eaten.
While cooking.
Once everyone else has stopped needing something from you.
The drink becomes a line between one part of the day and another.
For me, it was the point where I believed I could finally switch off.
So when the drink goes, there can be a gap.
The answer isn't pretending that gap does not exist.
My early alcohol-free evenings were incredibly simple
I didn't suddenly develop an exciting new evening life.
I went for a run.
Or I went to the gym.
Then I went home.
I cooked some food.
And quite often I was in bed by 8pm.
That's it.
It isn't a glamorous answer.
But it was real.
At that stage I wasn't trying to prove how brilliant life without alcohol could be.
I was building a different routine.
And going to bed early was considerably better for me than sitting in a pub until late and starting the next day wrecked.
Over time, more came back.
But at the beginning, simple was useful.
What didn't help me
There were certain things people could say to me that were like a red rag to a bull.
Just don't drink in the week.
Just go home tonight instead of the pub.
Don't drink as much as you did yesterday.
You need to think about your drinking.
I already thought about my drinking.
Far too much.
The last thing I needed was another nightly negotiation.
What genuinely helped me was guidance.
People who understood it.
A community.
Coaches.
Some structure around what I was doing.
I didn't need another person telling me that maybe I should try drinking a little bit less tonight.
I needed to stop having the same argument with myself every evening.
Don't ask what looks impressive. Ask what you will actually do.
People sometimes make replacing alcohol far too complicated.
You don't need seventeen new hobbies.
Think about the actual difficult window.
If your normal drinking time is 6pm to 9pm, what could realistically happen during those three hours?
Could you walk?
Run?
Train?
Cook properly?
Get out of the house?
Watch something you actually want to watch rather than something you won't remember tomorrow?
Go to bed early?
Call somebody?
Be around people who understand what you're doing?
The best replacement is the one you will genuinely use when the difficult hour arrives.
Not the one that sounds impressive when you plan it at 10am.
The bigger change is not constantly negotiating
Something I understand much better now is just how tiring the argument itself was.
Should I drink?
Shouldn't I?
Maybe tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Just a couple.
Only at weekends.
Only when I'm out.
Start again Monday.
When alcohol is removed from that discussion for a fixed period, you create room for other things.
That's why I like the simplicity of 90 days.
It isn't forever.
You don't have to decide what you will do at Christmas in ten years' time.
You decide what you're doing now.
And then you get to find out what happens.
Taking alcohol out isn't necessarily taking enjoyment away
This was difficult for me to articulate when I was drinking because alcohol felt like the enjoyable bit.
It felt like the reward.
The comfort.
The switch-off.
But what I eventually discovered was almost the opposite.
Taking alcohol out of my thoughts wasn't simply restricting me from something I loved.
It enabled me to enjoy more.
More of my evening.
More of the following morning.
More food.
More training.
More time.
More actual life.
I had been worried about what I would lose.
I hadn't really considered what might come back.
And you do not need to know today exactly what all of that will be for you.
That is part of the point of the pause.
You get 90 days to find out.
