Ending a 45-Year Love Affair with Beer

The anniversary passed quietly, just a couple of weeks ago.

On September 29^th, 2023, I drank my last alcoholic beer.

I was sharing dinner with a couple of old friends and faced a 25-minute drive home.

It wasn’t to be a big night anyway. I sipped on a Heineken, then had a non-alcoholic Corona as a nightcap. As simply as that, a 45-year love affair ended.

like so many of you, there have been times when my drinking was problematic.

Now, let’s be clear, I’ve never had a big-time drinking problem, but like so many of you, there have been times when my drinking was problematic.

I’ve been a beer drinker since I was in high school.

There were early hints that my relationship with alcohol was going to be complicated. Before beer, there was a brief dalliance with vodka. I was spectacularly ill. There were flirtations with Southern Comfort, a popular concert companion for members of my friend group. Ah, nothing like the post-Aerosmith hangover. I soon gave up hard liquor and stuck to beer.  

The teenage me loved drinking. A few beers made my natural shyness disappear. Booze made me fit in. It made me feel bigger, more confident, more interesting (at least in my mind). It removed my inhibitions when it came to asking girls to dance at the Spring Formal.

In my 20’s, beer helped grease the wheels as I started my journalism career. Beer lubricated friendships and fostered newsroom camaraderie.  That was the upside. The downside? Covering for drunk colleagues who returned from the bar an hour before they were to be on air. Drinking was the cause of at least one near punch-up in the newsroom. On more than one occasion I was the tipsy colleague. There were a couple of times later in my career when 3 or 4 pints at lunch might have affected my on-air performance.

Drinking sometimes caused chaos for me and the people around me.

Drinking sometimes caused chaos for me and the people around me. Beer cleared my filters. If I was happy, it made me happier. If I was unhappy, it made me unhappier. Decades later, I’m still ashamed of some of the rotten things I’ve said and done while in the grip of a dozen beers.  

I could generally control my drinking. As a younger guy, I was a dedicated runner, so I could usually get to bed earlier than most.  But that’s not to say drinking didn’t affect me. I ran a lot of miles hungover.

There are scores of funny drinking stories from my teens, 20’s and 30’s. But looking back, many of the stories were not funny at all. There are vivid memories of hair-raising close calls, usually involving buddies, beers, cars and a lot of dumb luck.

So many “morning afters”, sifting through the forensics of the night before, analyzing who was owed an apology, or what needed fixing. Those memories still make me cringe.

 By the time my 30’s hit, I was a lot more responsible. Although I still had my moments. There was that farewell party for a colleague about 10 years ago involving a dozen 9% Belgian beers.

Tasty going down, awful coming up. A painful Sunday in bed, an embarrassing Monday at work.

Generally, as I hit middle age, my drinking evolved from something I did with others to something I did alone at home. Beer was my medication for the general wretchedness of a failing marriage. Did it help?

Not really.

Skip ahead.

My marriage ended.

I met someone else.

She is a non-drinker, which made quitting a lot easier.  But giving up beer was a gradual process. Even after six happy years in a new relationship, I was still enjoying my weekend beers, but not quite ready to stop.

The final stretch in my long career as a drinker began with a major life change. In the summer of 2023, I decided to retire from my second career as a college instructor. Endless free time stretched before me, along with a potential problem.  For the first time in nearly 40 years, I had no reason not to enjoy a cold one. I could drink every day if I wanted to.

My consumption was ticking upward. My better half noticed the recycling bin filling up quicker than usual.

Gradually 3 or 4 on a Friday night became 5-6. Friday and Saturday night beers became Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night beers. My consumption was ticking upward. My better half noticed the recycling bin filling up quicker than usual.

You can see where this was heading.

As the empties piled up, I began to evaluate. Did I want to be the retired guy who develops a sneaky little drinking problem? Every Friday, I’d ask myself:” Do I pick up a few beers for the weekend, or is this the end ?” A little voice was starting to tell me my trips to the beer store were numbered.

No matter how little I drank, I’d often wake up anxious, feeling that somehow, I’d done something wrong.

You see, something weird was beginning to happen. No matter how little I drank, I’d often wake up anxious, feeling that somehow, I’d done something wrong. One beer, or two, or three-the number didn’t matter. When Saturday dawned, I’d inevitably wake up with a case of the cringes. It was as if decades of beer-fuelled misadventures were ganging up on me. General guilt is a finely honed emotion in my family. Beer wasn’t helping.

Even as my fiance and I planned a September wedding, I was planning my breakup with beer.

The tipping point? the overwhelming evidence that I was far better off without alcohol in any form.

This year the World Health Organization linked alcohol use to more than 200 different diseases, including cancer, heart disease and mental illness. These are truly sobering facts, especially considering my father’s death at 82 from stomach cancer and some personal struggles with depression. I also wanted to be generally fitter and healthier.

Logic had won.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/alcohol – :~:text=Drinking alcohol is associated with,anxiety and alcohol use disorders.

So just over a year ago, a week after my wedding, I drank my last beer.

I haven’t had one since.

I’m sure it would add to the narrative if I could tell you that the last 12 months have been a struggle.

They haven’t. The breakup was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

There are no cravings.

I still have leftover beers in the fridge from my wedding. Untouched.

I enjoy waking up on a Saturday morning with a clear head and a clear conscience.

Aside from that, there’s been no dramatic changes. As long-term relationships go, this one ended quietly. It was simply time to say goodbye.