#118: The year I finally stopped fighting Dry January.
And made surprising discoveries about what I was really craving.
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"This lady is insufferable."
You can see it all over their face when I decline a cocktail and mention my yearly Dry January ritual. They're imagining me as some paragon of willpower and clean living. Meanwhile, in my head: "Who invented January anyway? Probably someone who really needed a drink."
I started this tradition five years ago, back when alcohol wasn't even my real vice. Food was my comfort zone — specifically the kind that comes wrapped in red and green foil during the holidays. But add a second glass of wine to the mix, and suddenly my willpower had left the building, probably hanging out at the nearest Cinnabon.
Yet, even though I chose this, every single year I'd count down the days until February 1st like a kid waiting for Christmas. I'd white-knuckle through corporate dinners with my club soda in its sweaty glass, watching everyone enjoying their bourbon and Beaujolais. I’d pace my house during lockdown, wondering if my entire family would actually benefit if I gave up this sober farce.
But this January? Different story.
Despite 2025 kicking off with enough global chaos to make a teetotaler reach for tequila, I haven't once thought "I wish I didn't do this stupid thing." That got me thinking — what changed?
My environment, for one.
I’m not in corporate America anymore. No more trying to bond with potential partners while nursing that same damn club soda that's fooling exactly no one. The drinking culture has changed too. Five years ago, ordering a non-alcoholic drink at a bar was like requesting they serve you motor oil. Now my local spots have entire mocktail menus.
But life always finds new, inventive ways to make one crave chemical disassociation…
The news about the midair collision over the Potomac hit home. First of all, it happened 30 miles from my house. Second of all, I fly a lot. And as the kids' remaining parent, there is nothing that causes my blood pressure to rise faster than imagining Connor and Kendall arranging my wake.
But reaching for the Malbec wasn't my first instinct when the story broke.
Turning off the TV was.
For once, I didn't need wine to face the headlines. I needed silence. So, I waited. I let the initial shock waves pass. I read the facts instead of watching footage of every detail, every theory, every heart-wrenching victim profile. I gave myself permission to feel it all on my own timeline.
I had the emotional reserves to pause and think in the face of overwhelming feelings. My tried-and-true coping strategies weren't new, but this January I could actually access them when I needed them. Funny how that works when you're not running on empty.
My corporate job didn't just require schmoozing — it demanded I be "on" for 60+ hours a week. Hard to replenish emotional reserves when you're on your last nerve, one minor crisis away from ordering whatever's on the top shelf.
So in the last year, my environment changed, the way I spent my time changed, and how I was able to relate to the stress of life changed.
I was feeling pretty bulletproof until two days before January ended…
I was writing at my kitchen island when water splashed across my hand.
I looked down to see the words of my carefully crafted post outline melting down the page, Ã la Salvador Dali.
And then I looked up.
The drip hadn't come from my glass. It came from my ceiling.
House disasters hit different when you're a widow. Every leaky pipe feels like it's targeting your carefully constructed sense of control.
I called my brother-in-law Richie to brainstorm. Together we traced possible water sources, me huffing clues to him as I ran up and down the stairs. Then I looked out a tiny square window in my bathroom and saw it.
Unlike Greenland or Norway, the polar ice cap covering my roof — a first time phenomenon due to a record-smashing DC winter — was not reduced by global warming. It was frozen solid. The only thing missing was a penguin colony.
For the next two hours, I attacked that ice sheet with my snow shovel, launching mini-icebergs into the yard below.
The dripping stopped.
A quick text from my builder Sam promising a roofing crew visit next week drained the last of my panic.
That evening, looking at my somewhat worse-for-wear ceiling, I realized something: I hadn't once thought "God, I need a drink."
On February 2nd, I had my first cocktail of 2025 with my lovely daughter at our favorite New Orleans haunt.
As I sipped that perfect tequila concoction (not my usual vodka gimlet, but when in Rome and all that) something clicked into place.
All those years of white-knuckling through Dry January weren't about alcohol at all. They were messages from my body, written in the language of cravings and constraints, trying to tell me something about my life.
The corporate dinners with which I sometimes struggled. The constant pressure to be "on." The endless effort to stay ahead in an industry that doesn't sleep. My body knew before my brain did — something had to give.
This year was easier not because I got better at saying no, but because I finally built a life that made me want to say yes.
Yes to space. Yes to things that light me up. Yes to seeing ceiling drips for what they are — home maintenance, not an existential crisis.
Turns out I wasn't fighting alcohol. I was fighting a life that made me want to numb out.
To building a life that fits,
You rock, Sue! I don't miss alcohol anymore. But then again I always got terrible hangovers. And apparently you can get a DUI in a wheelchair.
Flat roof parts can be a bug a boo! Glad u found it on your own, home repair can drive one to many drinks! Enjoy nawlins!!