Crushable Confessional: Couples' Sobriety

What happens when a whiskey-loving couple goes sober for a month?

My boyfriend, Jay, and I met in Manhattan on the night of his best friend’s bachelor party. I was at the Slipper Room with my friends, he accidentally sat in my seat, and we struck up a conversation. We followed the bachelor party to a strip club and a dive bar, and by the end of the night we were drunk enough to think eating pizza in the rain in Union Square was a good idea.

That first night set the tone for the first few months of our relationship. Whiskey caused and solved most of our problems—I once started a fight after too many Jack and Cokes and apologized by buying Jay a glass of Macallan 25.

We drank less after those first few months, but still there were drinks at brunch, at dinner, drinks with friends, drinks at band practice, etc.

Then, at the end of December, Jay said he wanted to take a break from boozing—there was no big, dramatic reason, he just thought it might be a healthy change.

I agreed, and it was decided: we wouldn’t drink for the month of January.

Friends’ reactions ranged from “WHY?” to “See you in February!” It was as if we’d decided to stop breathing air. And for the first few days, yeah, it felt odd not to drink. It felt odd going out with friends and ordering Cokes. It was still fun, but we noticed that our drunk friends repeated themselves, a lot. And why did people have five drinks and get sloppy when they could have stopped at one or two?

After a couple of weeks, not drinking didn’t feel odd, it felt normal. Friends commented that we looked better, younger, less “bloated” even. (What, guys, did we look like fat Elvis before?) We had more energy. We had more money—dinners out are much cheaper without drinks. We didn’t get in fights over nothing at 2 a.m. And not that we’d never done this before, but now that it was happening on a regular basis, I noticed just how awesome it was to have sex sober—without any of your senses dulled.

There were downsides, though—it was harder to plan our weekends when we couldn’t grab drinks. (Highlight: We finally went to see the Tim Burton exhibit at MoMA. Lowlight: We went to Barcade and played video games). And little things that annoyed us about our jobs, or apartments, annoyed us more when we were sober—although that may have been why Jay finally moved out of his railroad apartment and I got a new job.

We’re back to drinking now, but we drink less, and less often. And we’re happy knowing that we get along just as well when we don’t drink, because we’re still the same people—skinnier people with fatter wallets, but still.