I Drank for Decades – This One Trick Made Me a Moderate Drinker

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The Shift from Regular Drinking to Intermittent Consumption

My bottle of wine was waiting in the fridge last Saturday, my first sip of Sauvignon this year, as cold and crisp as I’d anticipated. But when I finished the glass, something that would once have been unthinkable happened – I didn’t want to refill it. This shift in my relationship with alcohol has been gradual, yet profound. Until four years ago, alcohol was an integral part of my identity. I drank, often to excess, most weeks for decades, and assumed I would forever.

Now, I treat booze as a toxic friend – fun to have around occasionally, but best, and, crucially, easily, kept at bay. I never dreamed such a psychological pivot would be possible – until I embarked on extended breaks without it. By which I don’t mean Dry Januarys, which I would do begrudgingly, counting down the days until I could drink again, but three stretches of several entirely alcohol-free months and years. After each sober spell, my desire to drink has diminished.

I realize this is controversial. Many experts believe moderation is more effort than it’s worth when you’ve been as enthusiastic a drinker as I was, and I agree that, as a carcinogenic and depressant, any alcohol is a problem. But for me, permanent abstinence feels like another form of perfectionism with which to beat myself up, in a world of ever greater extremes. Instead, I have become what I have coined an “intermittent drinker,” finding that periods of abstinence kibosh cravings in the same way intermittent fasting has been shown to reduce longing for unhealthy food.

Understanding the Psychological Shift

So, have I rewired my brain? Or am I deluding myself? I asked Marcantonio Spada, emeritus professor of addictive behaviours and mental health at London South Bank University and chief clinical officer at the mental healthcare company Onebright, who has treated hundreds of problem drinkers as a clinician over three decades.

For those who are alcohol dependent, consuming upwards of 60 units a week, it is “extremely difficult” to learn controlled drinking, he says, and abstinence is “easier.” However, what constitutes problem drinking is “subject to negotiation,” and for those drinking less than 20 units a week, whether that’s a couple of glasses a day or a binge at the weekend, or, in my case, somewhere between the two, he says “there’s an opportunity to change” our drinking habits.

But he agrees that 30 days won’t provide it. “You have to get used to not having alcohol for long enough to realise the benefits, physically and psychologically.” Research shows cravings can increase before they subside. One study on inpatient alcoholics in the journal Addiction Biology showed they were highest after 60 days of abstinence. Another study on habit forming in the European Journal of Social Psychology found it took participants an average of 66 days of consistent repetition for a daily habit, such as running before dinner, to become automatic.

Spada says three months – just under 100 days – is “fundamental” to break a psychological association with alcohol. After four weeks, his patients tell him they still miss alcohol. After three months, “they start reporting how their life is changing. They don’t want to go back.” After six months, for those who aren’t alcohol dependent, “there is scope to discuss a potential return, where you have the odd glass when you go out for dinner. Usually, if you reach a year, you have a good chance of not returning to old habits.”

A Personal Transformation

While I was nowhere close to alcoholism, I was burnt out and suspected booze was to blame in January 2022. So I set myself a 100-day alcohol-free milestone. By the end, I felt so much better – calmer, happier, more focused – that it turned into two years. My perception of alcohol turned on its head. I realized I’d rarely drunk for pleasure, but to escape my feelings – and long term, this strategy didn’t work. I learned to socialize sober, destress without wine, and enjoy life without anything “to take the edge off.”

With my extended break, Spada tells me, I broke “the conditioned response to alcohol.” So why start drinking again? Well, eventually I became overwhelmed by my all-or-nothing approach. I missed the sense of belonging that sharing a bottle shouldn’t bring, but still does. I was tired of being the one to always say “no” and started to fetishize alcohol to the point it elicited far more excitement than it warranted.

While the burgeoning sobriety industry maintains moderation is more effort than it’s worth, I began to wonder if it might be an option for me. And although I worried I’d be head-first in a bucket of Sauvignon within a month when I started drinking in January 2024, I often found the taste unpalatable, and the prospect of broken sleep not worth it.

I still went for weeks without drinking, and usually stuck to a couple of glasses when I did. Simply knowing I could have a drink, I felt better; however, probably because I avoided what’s called the “thought suppression rebound effect,” when trying not to think about something often makes you think about it more, says Spada. He stresses that while it’s crucial we don’t drink as a form of “avoidance,” a drink with friends has “merit,” and awareness of how alcohol makes you feel and why you’re drinking is key. “After a couple of glasses, I feel relaxed, I’m having a nice time,” he says. “That’s a signal to stop.”

Reevaluating the Role of Alcohol

Whether because of my age – 47 – or increased sensitivity to alcohol after such a long break, I found it was making me feel increasingly irritable. So last January, I stopped again for 100 days. Ring-fencing a period of time in which I didn’t think about alcohol at all felt more like self-care than sacrifice, while a second sober stretch, from last September to December, felt easier still.

Repeated breaks are beneficial, says Spada, as “you develop beliefs you are controlling alcohol rather than it controlling you.” I realize mine were a form of what Dr Anna Lembke, Stanford University psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation, describes as “self-binding.” This means a way of putting barriers in place, either with time or physical distance from compulsions – be they for booze, social media or junk food, and whether the goal be abstinence or moderation.

Brain imaging studies show that long-term drinking can change areas of the brain involved in emotion, reward, stress, and decision-making, potentially permanently. But neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to change – can help it recover, says Spada, especially if we eat healthily and exercise “to stimulate repair.” Given I didn’t drink to excess during the week, he thinks any impact to my brain would be minimal.

When the drudge of January is over, I might embark on another sober stretch – although the fourth time round, I wonder how much I will even notice. While I’m enjoying giving myself permission to indulge, the bottle of Baileys I bought to mark the end of 100 alcohol-free days last December remains unopened, and on New Year’s Eve, I stuck to a single glass of wine.

So if you’re looking forward to your first drink of the year this weekend, holding off a bit longer might change your life, like it did mine.