Oh, the ever-pressing question of ALCOHOL! What’s a health blogger to do when she doesn’t really love putting alcoholic beverages in her body & she reallllly doesn’t love being hungover, but she still enjoys getting buzzed with her friends every once in a while?
She works her magic of ●● m o d e r a t i o n ●●.
You see, I’m allowed to talk about drinking in moderation without sounding like a total annoying doofus because I have very much spent time on both ends of the spectrum. I have been super wild partier Jordan who set a personal record of going out & drinking (read: getting hammered) for two weeks straight without a single night off, and I have been majorly anti-alcohol late-night-fearing Jordan who has steered clear from having a drop on her tongue for months at a time (I was orthorexic… hello!).
See? I told you I was a train wreck.
I’m not saying I regret my wild child years, because they helped me grow and learn what works best for me and what doesn’t. Miraculously, when I was 18, 19 and 20 (don’t tell the police) I was able to drink excessively at night and go to class and the library all day and do really well in school. Now if I were to go out partying until 4 a.m. I would be a zombie to the world the next day and all productivity would fly out the window.
When I hang out with people I haven’t seen in a while who knew me at that time in my life, they are always shocked to see how mellow I have become. I go out, but I like to be home on the early side. I drink, but I keep it to one or two drinks (instead of my previous seven). 
And why am I writing about it today? Because finding a balance has been TRICKY for me & it’s something I am still working to figure out.
In New York, it was easy to keep my drinking to a bare minimum. That was probably because with the exception of some of my closest friends that I moved to the city with, mostly everyone I hung out in New York didn’t know me before I mellowed out. They know me as the balanced healthy yogi writer work-addict that I have turned into… that I love being! And yes, I won’t deny that I went overboard with the no drinking thing for a while, but it certainly made it easier to stick to my guns when people were used to my non-drinking ways.
Now I am surrounded by more people that I have known for a long time, which on the one hand is a beautiful thing! I am also living in a city where I was once a total party animal. It’s hard to figure out exactly how often I want to drink, go out, balance my work, staying in, relaxing, going out and not drinking, having my nights where I stay out late, nights where I go out but come home early, etc.
Being the extreme girl that I am, I am frequently tempted to either:
- Proclaim that I don’t drink at ALL, and easily avoid alcohol by declaring to the world that I’ve given up drinking as a whole.
- Say screw it and force myself to unwind from my fears and hesitations and drink whenever I am in a drinking type of situation
Well, every day I have to remind myself that neither of those things are necessary. I don’t need to slap a label on myself by saying that I do not EVER drink and will not ever drink again. Alternately, I don’t need to believe that drinking in general means drinking allll the time or needs to mean that I can’t go out and turn down a drink.
I can find my happy medium! I can drink when I feel like it and turn it down when I don’t feel like it. If I end up not drinking 90% of the times that I go out, that’s cool with me. If I end up drinking more than I expect to, that’s cool too.
All I want to do is follow my heart, feel amazing, let go of restrictions and just be. If that eventually leads me to an alcohol-free lifestyle, I wouldn’t be shocked. But even then, if I want to sip on some cocktails a few times a year I’m not going to sue myself.
Here I am enjoying a drink in moderation with my NYC BFF Paul over brunch in April. (Okay, I actually got really drunk that day but you get the idea. Then I went to yoga. It was hysterical.)
Sometimes I do love drinking for the social aspect, and sometimes it’s just one of those nights where it sounds like a great idea. And sometimes there’s a situation or a party or a bar environment where I know it would be a whole lot more fun to loosen up and have a few drinks. And in those cases, you’ll sure as heck find me with a drink in my hand.
Constantly on my quest for balance, and I am getting there. One day at a time. The good thing is, I am WAY more comfortable going out & turning down drinks than I used to be. I don’t want to let my general dislike of drinking get in the way of my social life, and that’s what most important to me right now. Finding a balance of maintaining my social life without feeling the need to drink when everyone else is.
Sounds doable, right?
What are your thoughts on alcohol? Do you feel the same way I do, or are you still in the “it’s 5 o clock somewhere” stage?! I am open to all opinions– we are all different for a reason, and those differences are what make us beautiful!