Two years ago, I made a decision to stop drinking and start listening—to my body, to mornings, to the way time feels without any disruptors.
By the way, this is not a testimonial about recovery so much as a meditation.
What does sobriety do to a life? How does it retune time, self, body, lineage, and the way I make things? As I was checking off my daily log spreadsheet and looking at Day 80, Day 81, I wondered what all of this meant in the long term.
I just passed the 2-year mark last July. After 2+ years, I realize that sobriety, for me, has been less about never again and more about what returns when the noise fades—what sharpens when I stop buffering.
As a child of an alcoholic father, I used to deem alcohol “evil’s piss.”
Then my first drink arrived in Korea as a 19-year-old. I was visiting friends in Seoul. I’d left the country as a pimply middle schooler, and we all reunited as college kids. WE WERE ADULTS, practically! They wanted to show how fun drinking was. To my surprise, it WAS fun!
Back in Boston, the former “evil pisser” joined my friends for drinking and became an enthusiastic social drinker.
Then I drank a little more, until I had my first blackout, then a second and a third and…
Over the following ten years, alcohol became something I chose to soothe any bump in the road. A delicious short-term high: you forget your troubles for several hours. I wondered if that was why my father drank, sometimes until he got kicked out of a local tavern.
Then I met Kenny (not much of a drinker), and I entered a grown-up part of my life: marriage, babies, business, and the thrum of family life.
Drinking in my busy 30s meant wine after a long day, margaritas on vacation, cocktails at parties. Extra here and there, possibly occasional hangovers on the weekends while you flip pancakes for kids while popping Advil.
Then the pandemic made it cute WORLDWIDE. Cocktail hours by celebrities on Facebook! Let’s all do happy hour Zoom! What if we shake rosemary into this or ooh, that?
Then something called perimenopause struck me down.
As I entered my forties, the drinking started to feel like rubbing skin on sandpaper. Suddenly, red wine = aches; white wine = headaches that loiter; cocktails = heartburn + sleep chaos.
Culture continued to say, “Pour a glass!—you earned it, Mama!” My body said, with aches in my joints, “Please don’t.”
After many ignored calls, after one particularly bad vibration from a measly two glasses of wine, I decided it was time to take heed. Full stop!
For the first year, it was hard to face that post-day winding down with nothing. What does one do to wind down without a glass in hand? Is that possible? To fill those empty moments, I went out of my way to make a fuss over my mocktail hour—NA beers, spritzy bitters, the good glass (of course).
From frantic concocting recipe after recipe to weekly ones and eventually I didn’t need the performance; I entered a quieter era.
Before I knew it, I realized I’d made it to the two-year mark.
Based on the quick calculation I did, roughly 56% of my life was spent drinking. It seems like a lot. Apparently, it takes about 10 years for the body to reset after you stop drinking. 8 more years to go!
What changed from being sober (and continues to change)
Made me more available to my kids, to Kenny and most of all to myself.
My evenings stopped bargaining with my mornings.
My body started to feel like home again.
My nervous system unclenched. Sleep actually did its job. Sunday stopped growling.
I didn’t need to be “interesting” at dinner. Presence carried the table just fine.
The pains I thought I needed to numb became windows—places to look in and learn.
Joy got gentler and more reliable.
Eating out without drinking is much cheaper! More desserts for everyone.
Over and over, I’m stepping off the old track and choosing something else for me.
If this hums for you—sober, sober-curious, or just tired of buffering—tell me what’s replacing the old reflex. What does your 6 p.m. look like these days: a walk, a bath you actually schedule, sparkling tea in the fancy glass? I’m listening.
xo, Unha
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P.S. A few nice things
If you are curious about going sober but need a transitional mocktail phase like I did, you can try these.
⁃ If Non Alcoholic wine tastes too sharp, try hop water (Hoplark, Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher) or sparkling tea (TÖST, Rishi Sparkling Botanicals). They scratch the “wine-glass ritual” without the vinegar vibes.
⁃ Zero-proof aperitif idea: bitter/herbal over ice with an orange peel (Ghia is a good place to start).Sleep & alcohol (quick note): alcohol can help you fall asleep but tends to fragment sleep later—so if your midlife sleep is wobbly, less often helps more.
Your gentle experiment: keep a tiny 3-line log for a week—time you drank (or didn’t), sleep quality, morning mood. See what your own body says. I’ve been tracking myself around being sober for the past 2 years, and that’s been really helpful.
Bonus: A tiny 6 p.m. recipe (no spiral, lots of vibe)
The Bright Quiet
Ingredients: tall glass, ice, sparkling water/seltzer, big wedge of lime, pinch of flaky salt, 2–3 dashes of bitters of your choice or a splash of tart lemonade.
Method: Fill glass with ice. Add sparkling water. Squeeze in lime; drop the wedge. Pinch of salt on top. Taste. If you want a little more hello, add a dash of bitters or the tiniest pour of lemonade.
But really, any juice/slices of fruit/bitter/herbs will work!
Pair with a walk around the block or a long exhale at the window. Works best when you’re not pretending it’s something else.
I was also the child of an alcoholic father. 12 years sober here. ✨
I relate so much on many levels. Lots of addiction in my family and I am ok admitting I have come to a point in my life that I have zero interest in alcohol. The culture of moms “needing “ and “deserving “ a drink , starting when our kids are babies, is very troublesome to me as I look back. Too much insight to type here but very impressed by you and thank you for sharing all of this !!!