Guest Contributor – Mike Seilback
Like many Gen X/Millennials (someone said I am a Xennial?), I grew up through my teens and twenties binge drinking on weekend nights. At that time, the routine included pregame drinks, all night of drinking, and then the one last drink as the night was coming to an end. Despite the drinking, I built a successful career and began a family. As I proceeded in adulting, the drinking pace changed but often revolved around a few drinks at night to celebrate an occasion or compensate for a bad day at work.
As was the case around the world, the COVID pandemic seemed to kick my drinking up a level or two. Anxiety and boredom mixed with alcohol delivery and virtual happy hours led to increased drinking.
Over the years, I often tried to make deals with myself to cut back drinking—no more Double IPAs on weeknights, or no scotch on the weekends—but inevitably, I’d return to them. As we approached my son’s bar mitzvah celebration, I decided to take a few weeks off from drinking. I spent a weekend away with some of my oldest friends, and to all of our surprise, I made it through the weekend without alcohol.
A couple of weeks later, I went to a concert sober, and at some point during the show, I thought to myself, I am so happy and I am not drunk. The day of my son’s bar mitzvah came, and my wife convinced me to stick to the nonalcoholic beers; despite my apprehension, I found myself more engaged and more present. I decided it was time to try life without drinking.
It has now been over three years since I last had alcohol. I was lucky—I never hit a rock bottom—but looking back, my relationships definitely were affected by alcohol; all aspects of life were affected. I have come to realize that alcohol acted as a comforting mask for me. It helped mask life’s challenges, mask my own discomfort, and mask emotions (although more times than not, it actually exacerbated sadness and anxiety).
In these three-plus years, I’ve enjoyed countless fun events, celebrated the bat mitzvah of our daughter, been to parties and other celebrations with family and friends, attended many concerts, sporting events, vacations, work events, and day-to-day life. Like any family, we’ve experienced hardships, loss, and the typical ups and downs of life. That’s not to say sobriety was easy. It is hard—especially for someone whose persona often involved having a drink in hand.
But I’ve learned that, for me, alcohol didn’t make the celebrations any better, nor the hard times any less hard (in most cases, it just complicated those things). Not to mention, it is a lot easier to deal with life without hangovers and without planning life around drinking.
Giving up alcohol seemingly gave me back control of my life. I am so grateful to be alcohol-free and so thankful for my family and friends who have been so supportive.
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