I did it!!! This gal who– once upon a time was in love with drinking wine–conquered a whole year without a drop of booze.

Let me say up front that my greatest discovery from this experiment has been that I was in love with a lie. I bought into the false-based peer pressure, social pressure and business pressure that alcohol is an essential ingredient to success and contentment.

My desire to drink alcohol is gone. Even when I’m immersed in a sea of drinkers yucking it up, I have no desire to even take a sip.

When I joined a 90-day challenge with the group called One Year No Beer on February 12th, 2018 never in a million years did I intend to go a whole year alcohol free. And never in a trillion years would I have thought, back then, that I would love being alcohol free so much that not only would I go a year without the booze, but I’d actually be committing to going a second year due to feeling so great and experiencing sheer magic in my life.

Want to know how my life is better now than it was a year ago? Sit back and enjoy!

• My financial health skyrocketed. More money. Better financial management and planning skills. My FICO score shot up more than 100 points and I paid off a boat load of debt.
• I have a most awesome morning routine that I do every day no matter where I am in the world. I don’t look at a screen for the first hour of the day. I read five minutes each from four different books, I meditate for 10 minutes and then end by doing seven Sun Salutations (if you’re not familiar with yoga it’s a standard yoga move). Doing a morning routine grounds me every day and is so powerful.
• I end my morning showers with a few minutes of freezing cold water. While I sometimes want to scream bloody murder like the actress in the shower scene from the movie Psycho, immersing oneself in cold water is not only invigorating for the soul, it is proven through research that the practice stimulates the circulation, alertness and brain health.
• I am hands down happier. There is nothing better than being happy for no reason.
• I am more loving and I bounce back from setbacks and challenges much quicker.
• I sleep like a log. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
• Thanks to various health experts I learned about from my booze-free community, I healed myself of 18 straight months of chronic, miserable back pain (thank you Dr. John Sarno…RIP) and rid myself of years-long night sweats (thank you Jane Barlow of Barlow Herbal). And thanks to learning about Mel Robbins and her 5 Second Rule I no longer hit the snooze button AND I no longer sleep with my phone in my bedroom–game changer!!!
• My mental clarity and ability to make good decisions are A. MA. ZING!
• I am now part of a global network of rock-star kindred spirits. Seriously, these folks are legends who are also bucking the system and creating a better life by taking a break from alcohol. All of us know that we are minorities in this world. How sad it is that taking a break of one of the top five most addictive substances in the world–that kills thousands of people each year–is perceived by most of society as weird. Now that I’m booze free for 372 days as I write this post I say–bring it on! Call me weird. I’m loving life and am so excited that my best days are ahead of me.
• I now regularly run 5Ks on Saturday mornings rather than lay in bed feeling lethargic from a Friday night out drinking with friends. In the past year I’ve run a 10K and more than ten 5Ks. And I’ve gone and signed up with some friends to do my first Spartan Race this May (if you don’t know what a Spartan is it’s a 5K with about 30 obstacles along the way).

There’s no way I could have gotten to where I am today without Andy and Ruari from One Year No Beer and members of my beautiful challenge group (my tribe!).

So that’s it. I am grateful, happy and filled with love.

Peace and cheers,

Kathleen