MODERATION: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I was stuck in a constant cycle of feeling ashamed, cutting back, setting rules for my drinking, breaking them, and starting over again.

I struggled with the concept of moderation for years. I finally realized that moderation just didn’t work for me, and I found incredible peace in releasing it as an option. I let go of the notion that moderation was going to be a magical solution, and it was one of the most liberating decisions I ever made, allowing me to make the changes I needed in my life.

I have always hated the word moderation because I don’t have a moderate bone in my body. I don’t just mean when it comes to drinking, I’m talking EVERYTHING. My all-or-nothing mentality runs deep in my DNA and comes straight from my dad who is the same way. My husband jokes around that my motto for life is, “if a little of something works, then a lot of it will work even better.” This applies to little things like my use of dish soap, shampoo, and toothpaste to things like my collection of running sunglasses and the number of M&Ms I can eat in one sitting. I have never been able to master the elusive concept of moderation, no matter how hard I try. When it came to my drinking….I definitely tried a LOT over the years, and when I look back I realize I looked like a dog chasing my tail.

I spent the entire 27ish years of my drinking career going from one extreme to the other, bouncing back and forth against the guide rails, desperately trying to find the elusive concept of moderation. I never found it. Moderation failed me OVER and OVER again, and I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t just figure it out. It wasn’t until I was 41 that I finally realized….WAIT, if moderation doesn’t work for me I can just accept that and move on. I can remove moderation from my toolbox, because it’s not really a tool, and I can figure out what will work. I discovered that it takes far less stress and energy to quit drinking completely than it did to continually chase the idea of moderation.

What’s weird is that people throw around this word a lot, but there’s really no crystal-clear definition as it relates to drinking. It’s hard to define the word moderation when you’re talking about a drug or an addictive substance. Alcohol is the only drug that we’ve determined is “OK in moderation”. Think about how strange that really is. No one would say it’s ok to SMOKE in moderation….or crystal meth is fine as long as you moderate. But with alcohol, we all live with this vague guidance implying we should be able to drink moderately or else we’re weak and have a problem.

I finally created my own definition of moderation as I started wrestling these demons. I say, moderation is the ability to limit your intake to a reasonable amount WITHOUT stressing and agonizing over that limit, constantly beating yourself up to stay within it, creating rules, and making exceptions constantly. It’s being able to take it or leave it, with no stress, and no extra mental energy expended over the maintenance of said moderation. In other words, it’s having a few drinks when you want them without constantly thinking and stressing about them.

I noticed early on that people tend to throw the word moderation around in a judgmental way when talking about drinking – snide comments about how you’re weak if can’t just drink moderately and have to quit totally, etc. I think that’s unfortunate and ignorant because moderation isn’t black and white. I don’t think it’s something that everyone has the same ability to manage or regulate. I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as people try to make it out to be.

As I was thinking through all of this and trying to evaluate my own choices, I thought about the difference between me and my husband.

My husband enjoys good bourbon, he likes a beer every now and then or a glass of red wine from time to time. He has a drink a few times a week if the opportunity presents itself, but he doesn’t stress over it either way. He might go long stretches without it, and it doesn’t even cross his mind. He doesn’t worry about whether he’ll have a drink each night, or how many he’ll have. He doesn’t make crazy rules for himself, other than his old standard that he’ll never have more than 2 drinks at a work event. He spends virtually no mental energy on thoughts of drinking. It sounds easy, and it is for him. I’ve always been incredibly jealous

Now, here is what moderation looked like for ME over the years...

I would drink WAY TOO MUCH, and I’d have one of those hangovers that prompted me to declare that I was never drinking again. I’d decide to take a break from drinking, and maybe I’d even go a week or two with no alcohol. I’d make a big stink about how I was only going to drink in moderation going forward. I’d do really well for the first week, only having one glass of wine here and there and sticking to my limits. Then the weekend would roll around, and I’d slip into my old patterns. I’d get mad at myself and feel so ashamed that I’d let it happen again. I’d make a bunch of new rules for myself….no more wine on weeknights. No more than 3 drinks on the weekend. I’d do okay for a few days again, but then I’d realize there was an open bottle of my favorite wine in the fridge. I should just finish that first so it doesn’t go to waste, THEN I’ll cut out weeknights again. Every night, I’d agonize over whether it was allowed to be a drinking night and I’d negotiate with myself to change the rules. One glass would turn to 2, then 3, and then I’d stop counting. It was like a roller coaster that went on for 25 + years. Drink too much, try to reign it in, take a break for a while, slowly start to fall into my old habits, make a bunch of rules, break all the rules, feel ashamed…Wash, rinse, repeat.

It was NEVER easy

I always spent an incredible amount of mental energy agonizing over it all. Have you ever taken kids bowling and they’ve put the lane bumpers up? You know how the kiddos are trying to get the ball down the middle, but it keeps bouncing from one bumper to the other? That was me, trying my entire life to drink moderately. Bouncing off the sides and never making it in a straight line down the middle.

It took me SO long to figure this out because we seem to be inundated with messages implying that if we can’t moderate, we’re weak/we’re failures/we have a problem. This seems so backward to me now, that there’s almost a stigma around not being able to moderate an addictive substance. Alcohol’s very nature makes it difficult to moderate.

Moderation failed me, over and over, and I caused myself so much stress and agony trying to make it work. When I finally stopped and said “Moderation just isn’t my jam, and I’m done trying to fit a square peg in a round hole” it felt like a 100lb weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I spent a lot of time trying to make moderation work, and while I was focused on that, it was holding me back. I was convinced that keeping alcohol in my life was necessary, and moderation was the answer. Beating my head against the moderation wall kept me from pursuing options that were more effective and would actually have the ability to affect fundamental changes in my life. As long as we’re hung up on the idea that moderation is SUPPOSED to work for us, we’re missing out on the things that might actually work.

As I was reaching my breaking point, it was becoming glaringly obvious that moderation was no longer an option, and I had to find something that was. My mental health was suffering, my physical health was suffering, and I had reached the point where I knew that alcohol was keeping me from becoming the best version of myself. Something had to give.

When I really broke it down, it seemed like there were only 3 logical choices. Either I could:

Drink myself into oblivion and dive off the clip into a much more severe drinking problem

Continue to desperately and painfully grapple with this ridiculous notion of moderation

Or finally, just quit drinking completely and leave all those problems behind.

Thinking of my choices like that was incredibly enlightening. Really, I couldn’t think of any others. When I looked at that list there was only one that made any sense. I finally opened my mind and my heart to the fact that the only thing that was going to work for me was no drinking at all. It was like getting hit by a lightning bolt when I finally opened my eyes and realized that I could just step off the hamster wheel.

I know those 3 choices might sound oversimplified, but really – what other options are there? It was so empowering when I accepted that and finally made the decision that I was going to stop drinking altogether. I’m not suggesting that it’s an easy decision or an easy process, but it felt like the choice that made the most sense, and I worked to become at peace with it.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel like a failure because I couldn’t master moderate drinking, I felt like I was stepping into my power by realizing and accepting the fact that it just didn’t work for me. Instead of trying and failing repeatedly, I was making a choice to choose a different path that I knew WOULD work.

Even though I still had to learn to walk the path to and through sobriety, which requires WORK, I did it knowing that it felt like less work than constantly trying and failing at moderation. Suddenly I had ONE task to worry about (DON’T DRINK AT ALL) as opposed to fighting this constant internal battle over when/how much/how many/how often. It was an incredible relief.

Ultimately, I was only able to change my relationship with alcohol once I finally accepted the fact that I needed to LET GO of the notion that moderation was going to be a magical solution for me. Releasing that whole idea was one of the most liberating decisions I’ve ever made, and it allowed me to make the changes I needed in my life finally.