INTRODUCTION
THIS IS NORMAL, RIGHT?
At twenty-eight, I looked like I had it all together. I had an exciting job at a new venture-capital-backed startup, a great apartment in a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood, a big group of friends, and an invitation to a different party every weekend. On paper, my life was on track. But my insides told a different story.
When I laid in bed at night, I felt empty. I thought that if I just pushed myself a little bit harder, I would snap out of it. There was no logical reason for the loneliness that had taken up residence in my body. I had a privileged upbringing, with access to education, food, shelter, and a loving family. Growing up, I had done everything by the book: I studied hard in high school, graduated from Brown University, and found the “right” friends. My social circle consisted of high-achieving lawyers, consultants, doctors, and creatives excelling in their respective fields with the kind of trained indifference we had learned as teenagers. Yes, we were at the top of our classes and industries. But we wouldn’t be caught dead showing how much we cared, how exhausted we were, how hard we tried. We were taught to make it look easy; to succeed without bragging. To offset our ambition (and the fear of failure that rippled through every decision we made), we partied.
Put simply, my generation is the “work hard, play hard” cohort. Millennials are the most educated generation. (According to the PEW Research Center, 63 percent of Millennials value a college education and plan to get one if they haven’t yet.) We are also the first generation to have grown up with social media. But while our ambition is well-documented, my peers and I were also taught to be seductively coy. This kind of cool was dubbed “effortless perfection” by undergraduates at Duke University in 2003. Students described a social environment on campus characterized by effortless perfection or “the expectation that one would be smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful, and popular, and that all this would happen without visible effort.”
My senior year of high school, several of my classmates swore that they hadn’t applied Early Decision to any colleges. I found out they were lying when they got into prestigious universities that December and posted about their acceptances on Facebook. In college, I encountered the same types of nonchalant overachievers: a classmate swore that she had botched her MCATs, only to get a near-perfect score, and later, acceptance to a top medical school.
I wanted to achieve the same degree of effortless perfection when it came to my schoolwork. I knew caring was uncool, but there were a couple of problems. For starters, I have always cared too much about what other people think. I also try too hard. I don’t know how to pretend that hard things are easy. Every time I switched majors in college (Creative Writing to English to Education to Sociology with a brief detour to Public Policy and back around to Creative Writing again), I felt like I had a civic duty to inform every person I encountered. No one—no one—cared, but it was like a compulsive tick. I was curious and passionate about learning, but I lost interest quickly. I needed praise, or at the very least validation that I was on the right track, to keep me hooked. I knew how to study hard, but I wasn’t sure how to think for myself.
Partying was the great unifier. Alcohol dulled my incessant desire to be liked; I felt more self-assured after a few drinks. But because I still possessed the same need to keep up and achieve, I was also always “down” for whatever. Another drink? Definitely. Afterparty? I’m not tired. Scaling the side of my college’s science building in the middle of the night and drinking on the roof? If you guys are doing it, I’m doing it too. It never occurred to me that being down for anything wasn’t a particularly interesting or unique personality trait.
If you had asked me if my drinking was problematic, I would have shrugged it off. I loved partying; I saw it as a declaration of independence and a feminist act. I kept up with the boys through college and beyond, from the classroom to the frat house to the bar. When I moved to New York after graduation, I matched every drink my male friends and coworkers took, relishing the way their eyes widened as I went shot for shot with them in dingy downtown dive bars. I documented it all on social media, watching the likes pour in on my party pics and taking them as a signal that this was normal, right?
My drinking got worse as I got older, and so did my denial. I woke up bruised and bloodied after falling in heels on a concrete sidewalk, but I shrugged it off. It could have happened to anyone! I couldn’t have a “real” problem with alcohol, I reasoned, because I was smart, high-achieving, and young. I was also “healthy.”
An avid consumer of wellness culture, I dabbled in veganism, supplements, matcha, and anything promising to make me feel good. On weeknights after work, hoping to shed the last licks of a happy hour hangover, I spent thirty-six dollars a pop on SoulCycle rides and heated hip-hop yoga classes. These “power flows” involved fast-paced yoga sequences set to Drake playlists in a ninety-degree room. They became my sanctuary, and many other New York City women flocked to them for the same reason. We packed the small, hot rooms with our work anxieties and broken hearts, squeezing our mats together and thrusting our bare feet in each other’s faces. We all wanted a pseudo-spiritual experience that would cleanse us of our sins and burn eight hundred calories. At the end of a sixty-minute flow, I would lay drenched on a mat flanked by thirty other women with the same dreams as me. I could feel their desires vibrating around the room. We were all so thirsty: for that promotion at work, text back from our date, and a hit of validation that meant we were okay.
I threw various words around—anxious, depressed, overworked—but overall, I just felt numb. I tried everything to snap myself out of it: intense workouts, juice cleanses, therapy, antidepressants, taking a vacation, dating different kinds of men, moving into a new apartment. But nothing helped. I was perpetually hungover and spiritually bankrupt, scraping the bottom of a barrel that had nothing left for me.
More than anything else, I tried to control my drinking. Booze was the baseline of most of my problems, even when I was unwilling to admit it. I worked with a therapist to create a list of my limits: four drinks max per night, a glass of water in between each, and no tequila shots. On the rare night that my limits were successful, I felt grim and resentful, unbearably aware of every additional drink my friends ordered. But on most occasions, once I started drinking, I found it nearly impossible to stop. I loved the effect produced by alcohol; the way it made me feel relaxed, charming, and impossibly clever.
A week after my twenty-eighth birthday party, I decided to have a quiet Friday night in. The remnants of my birthday hangover still lingered, and I was repenting. I had booked an early workout class for the next morning and was planning on ordering dinner and having a Real Housewives marathon on my couch. But there was a snag in my plans. My boss, on whom I was harboring a secret, confusing crush, invited me to his apartment for dinner after work. And so, my quiet night at home went out the window.
I had every intention of sipping my wine like a lady, enjoying my meal, and getting in bed at a reasonable hour. And maybe, just maybe, my boss and I would engage in a little innocent flirtation. But after dinner, a few of his friends (all European, even though he was from California) showed up, unannounced, with a bottle of whiskey. A beautiful Spanish girl put on a new playlist, and they all started dancing around the kitchen. Everyone appeared to be dressed for a Burning Man reunion, in wide-brimmed hats and linen shirts. I felt out of place in my white Converse sneakers and romper. I doubted anyone would notice if I just left.
Although I felt awkward surrounded by strangers, I also felt a spark of possibility mixed with drive. This was a new social terrain; I needed to prove myself to my boss and be liked. I poured myself a drink and, emboldened as ever by the whiskey, charged ahead into the unknown. I have a cringeworthy memory of exclaiming, I’ve always wanted to go to Burning Man! to a guy in a cowboy hat. I had not, in fact, always wanted to go to Burning Man, but it seemed like what I was supposed to say. One of my last memories is tumbling into a cab with my boss and his friend, headed toward a nightclub.
When I woke up in his friend’s bed the next morning with no recollection of how I had gotten there or why I was naked, I knew I had reached the last stop on the party bus. Too hungover for my workout class, I walked home in my clothes from the night before and took up residence on my couch for the next forty-eight hours. I was mortified and ashamed, but I was also brutally aware of the fact that, in the face of alcohol, all my previous plans had been derailed. I hadn’t wanted to get drunk, pass out next to a stranger, or embarrass myself in front of the boss I respected so much (regardless of whether that respect was earned). But once I started drinking, it was very hard for me to stop.
I was almost thirty, with a laundry list of dreams I planned on getting around to at some point. But partying was outshining all of them: the book I wanted to write, the cities I wanted to visit, the relationships I hoped to form. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Mostly, I wanted more out of my life than hungover weekends spent cleaning the puke out of my bras. I had to stop drinking. And that’s where this story starts.
* * *
I THOUGHT MY life would be over without alcohol. I imagined a bleak landscape of lonely weekends and awkward first dates. It seemed impossible that I would ever find meaningful friendships or fall in love without alcohol. Every date and sexual encounter I had experienced since the age of eighteen had been infused with liquid courage.
A year and a half after my last drink, I fell in love with a man who ordered a cocktail on our first date and looked on supportively as I asked the waiter for a cappuccino. Unlike other dates, he wasn’t bothered by the fact that I didn’t drink; he posed a few gentle questions about my sobriety before moving on to other topics. After we finished our drinks, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was a cold Saturday night in Brooklyn, and over shared plates of burrata and fried rice, he asked me something interesting.
What did you like to do on Friday nights as a kid?
I paused. Most of my nights had been about partying for so long. In the absence of binge drinking, I was trying to discover what activities I genuinely enjoyed. So far, I had taken up eating licorice on my couch and watching old episodes of Younger—not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but better than getting obliterated on vodka sodas. This man’s question reminded me of a younger version of myself; one with a long list of likes and a creative inner life.
I liked to play Scattergories with my parents and brother, I finally answered, surprising myself with the memory of the party game that involved naming objects within a set of categories, given an initial letter, within a time limit. I remembered cozy nights in pajamas, big bowls of warm popcorn, and the way my dad’s competitive streak ignited my own as my mom and younger brother still managed to nonchalantly beat both of us.
The man smiled. Maybe you should play with them again sometime, he suggested.
The next day, I took the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan for family dinner at my parents’ apartment. It was our Sunday ritual; we usually ordered takeout and shared stories about our respective weeks as our dog, Cooper, waited patiently at our ankles for scraps of pizza crust.
When our dinner dishes were cleared, I told them about the game night memories sparked by my date’s question. My parents perked up at the mention of a first date (Was he nice? Where did he grow up?), while my brother’s face reflected the same surprised expression that I had registered the night before. I knew he was remembering how we always begged to play when we were little. How, on most nights, my dad was too tired from a long work week. How excited we got whenever he said yes, fighting over who got to sit next to him. The way the floorboards creaked as we raced into the den in the house that we no longer lived in. His eyes crinkled into a smile as they met mine.
Did they want to play a round now? I pulled up an app version of the old board game on my phone as I posed the question. The four of us, now adults, sat around the kitchen table scribbling words on notepads as my phone timer ticked.
I texted my date as I walked to the train later that night. You inspired me. We played Scattergories, which is dorky but was so fun.
That makes me happy to hear, he replied. Most importantly, did you win?
My brother beat me by 1 point, I typed back. (He always did.) But it reminded me of being a kid and it was such a cool feeling!
Remembering being a kid, it turned out, would play a huge role in the next chapter of my sobriety. Year one had been all about the mechanics: don’t drink, don’t do drugs, and try to practice harm reduction. Can’t stop eating bags of candy? It’s fine; better than drinking. Spent hundreds of dollars on skincare products you saw on Instagram and don’t need? Not ideal, but you stayed sober!
As I got further from my last drink, I got closer to my most authentic self: the one I had buried in booze since I was sixteen. She was a little shaky at first, and still afraid to trust her own voice. But she had always been there. And the more I learned to listen to her, the clearer her voice became. I took singing lessons, a pastime I had cherished growing up until I became more passionate about partying in college. I went to concerts, reconnected with old friends, and spent more time with family. I even took up meditation (five minutes a day, if we’re being honest). Slowly, I began to feel more whole.
I also started writing. Despite my college degree in Creative Writing, I hadn’t done a lot of actual writing in between hangovers. Now, I was writing about my experiences dating, working, and all-around existing in sobriety, and I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. When my first essay on how sober dating had reverted me to an awkward teenager was published in The Cut, I was astounded by the response. I started receiving emails and social media messages from other young people with similar experiences. They also couldn’t get the words out fast enough: they had been thinking about cutting back on drinking too but worried their social lives would be over. Was it still possible to have fun at parties and weddings? What was sober dating like? How did my friends react when I told them I stopped drinking? Did I still have cravings?
I had carried around so much shame about my drinking for so long and felt like I was the only person my age struggling. As I continued sharing parts of my story in other publications—navigating wedding season in my first year sober for the New York Times, and why I had decided to quit drinking in the first place for Cup of Jo—and receiving more messages, I realized I was far from alone. Young people were struggling with blackouts, shame, and anxiety. It was just that no one else was talking about it. I started saving these emails in a folder on my phone as a reminder to keep writing, not only to connect with my younger self, but also as a smoke signal to others who were struggling in secret.
As I continued writing, I also began speaking on panels about sobriety and dating without alcohol in my twenties. At one event, a young woman nervously approached me. She had been following my work and wanted to thank me for being so open about my experiences. As we talked, tears streamed down her face. She told me she was feeling so alone, trapped in her own cycle of binge drinking but terrified to admit she had a problem. She wasn’t ready to quit drinking just yet, but we stayed in touch. A little over a year later, she invited me to celebrate her one-year sober anniversary on Zoom. She beamed with pride as she reflected on how much she had grown in a year without alcohol. Afterward, she told me that my writing had shown her that a happy life without alcohol might be possible for her too.
A year after that, I moved to Los Angeles with the man who asked me about my Friday nights. One Wednesday morning we went on a hike (another activity I discovered I loved in sobriety), and he asked me a different question on a bent knee. After I said yes, I thought back to the girl who had been so sure that giving up alcohol meant leading a loveless, boring life. I wished I could tell her that this new life, the one that was waiting for her all along, was the exact opposite.
1 What I Mean When I Say I’m a Blackout Drinker
My drinking feels like a fever dream now. The scenes come to me in hazy half memories, my body in a sweaty basement, yelling to be heard over a thumping beat, my mind elsewhere. The goal was always to vacate my body and float above it, watching myself spin out until we both lost consciousness.
I knew, every time I got drunk, that I would not be able to keep drinking forever. The thought would occur to me abruptly, as I was walking home from work in Brooklyn or rolling out my yoga mat before class. You don’t drink like other people, a voice in my head whispered for years. But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.
Until I got sober, I thought everyone blacked out. To me, it was a rite of passage and an inevitable outcome when I drank heavily. I later learned that many people get drunk without blacking out and losing huge chunks of their memories.
Blacking out does not mean passing out. It is a temporary condition that affects your memory and is characterized by a sense of lost time. In one moment, I would be taking a shot with friends or pouring another glass of wine. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the morning with an empty brain, a blank memory log from the past ten hours. As I drank more and my blood alcohol level continued to rise, the rate and length of my memory loss increased.
Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Levy
