My word for 2024: Sober ✨

If you could make one change that would improve every area of your life… would you do it?

I was lying in bed on Christmas night, thinking about the wild year that’s passed, and thinking ahead to the year to come.

Each New Year’s Day, Bryan, the kids, and I sit around the breakfast table and share our new year’s goals. I write them on whatever paper’s around and we pin them to a board in our kitchen. Flipping back through that stack, one pinned on top of the other, we can look back all the way to our goals in 2018. It’s cool to see how much we’ve grown year to year.

I thought of what mine would include this year:

• becoming my healthiest

• being my most creative / outside-the-box-thinking at work

• finding ways to be more fun and patient as a parent.

As I thought through the big and small habit changes I’d like to make to achieve those goals, one thought kept nibbling at the back of my mind.

Is this the year I go all in? The year I listen to my gut and finally decide to take the road less travelled in one small… maybe big… way.

I decided then, enthusiastically, yes. 🩷

Deciding to become alcohol-free would positively impact every single one of those goals. The whispering feeling that alcohol may not be great for me began in early 2023, right before I turned 40. And before I go any further, let me say this, in case this post is making you think about your own relationship with alcohol:

You don’t have to have a problem with alcohol to decide you don’t have room for it in your life anymore. That same sentiment can be applied to anything that’s no longer serving you, I might add.

We feel like we need a real reason not to drink, as if a clear mind, a clear heart, and a still, small voice urging us to be present aren’t enough.

Laura McKowen, We are the Luckiest

Alcohol has just slowly become something I realize isn’t working for me, at least in this season. Even a small amount gives me an insurmountable headache and causes my already bubbling anxiety to overflow. (I had a mimosa at a Christmas brunch and dealt with a headache the entire rest of the day… just not worth it anymore). Learning about the science of alcohol has caused me look at a casual glass of wine at the end of the day through a completely different lens.

Still, it’s everywhere: at dinners, at celebrations, at get-togethers. I’ve hesitated to take the leap to becoming 100% alcohol free because… well, if I’m being honest, I don’t like being the odd-man out. And yet, practice made progress in 2023. Sober vacations. Sober celebrations. Sober casual dinners. Realizing the effects weren’t worth the sips, I took longer and longer breaks. I discovered alternatives I really loved (to name a few: Sanpellegrino when out and about, Betty Buzz at home on a summer evening, and Töst for celebratory bubbles).

I’m excited to have made this decision in this season and for what it means for other areas of my life — moving into 2024, fully clear-headed. Who knows if this is a forever thing, I just know right now it feels good to step outside the status-quo, knowing it’s where my heart is leading. In nearly 41 years, it hasn’t led me astray.

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I’m cheering you on as you look back at 2023 to consider what worked and what didn’t — and as you make decisions about what this next season will look like. I’d love to chat about where your heart is leading you for 2024 in the comments.

With love,

Emily