Alcohol-Free, and It's Actually Pretty Easy
I stopped drinking on 9 November 2025, a Sunday, the day after the Unlock Your Brain conference. No grand resolution, no rock bottom, no challenge to announce. Just a quiet decision that felt, for the first time in a long while, completely mine.
I won’t pretend I had a dramatic relationship with alcohol. I didn’t. A glass of wine with dinner, a beer on the terrace in summer, nothing that would worry anyone. But over time I noticed how often I was reaching for a drink without really wanting one. Out of habit. Out of routine. Because it was Friday, because the day had been long, or simply because the bottle was there. That bothered me more than the alcohol itself.
I expected to miss it. I expected awkward dinners, friends teasing me, evenings that felt suddenly flat. None of it really happened. It was easier than I’d imagined. A sparkling water does the job almost everywhere, and most people don’t care what’s in your glass. The few who asked were mostly curious, sometimes a little wistful. Family gatherings were a bit different, though: occasionally a little awkward, and once or twice judgmental.
There’s also something deeper, as a father. I don’t want to be the guy opening a beer the moment the workday ends. I want my kids to see the best of me: present, patient, and clear-headed. Not perfect, just fully there. They’re already proud of me for it, and they’re also more aware now of the dangers of alcohol.
Another reason is agency. I want to stay in command of my life, and I don’t want any kind of drug, however socially accepted, to control me. I also want to maximize my healthy years, not just to live longer, but to stay in good shape for longer with my kids.
And then there’s running. I wrote in February about training for my first half marathon, which is, by the way, in six days. I genuinely don’t think I would have arrived at the start line in the same shape if I’d kept drinking. Recovery is faster. Long runs hurt less the next day. Lacing up at 6 a.m. on a cold morning is dramatically easier when you didn’t have a drink the night before, even in winter at -2°C. Running and staying alcohol-free have become two halves of the same habit, each quietly reinforcing the other.
This change is also why, on my /now page, I describe myself as “mostly alcohol-free.” I want to leave room for the very rare special occasion, a wedding or a once-in-a-decade reunion, without making a religion of it. But almost six months in, I’ve noticed I don’t actually want those exceptions much anymore. The idea of a drink simply doesn’t pull at me the way I thought it would.
If you’ve ever wondered whether you should cut back or stop, the only honest thing I can tell you is this: it’s much easier than you think. You don’t need a program, a label, or a public commitment. You just stop, and then you keep not drinking, one ordinary evening at a time. For me, it was really that simple.