So, this week, I came to the conclusion that I have to go completely sober from alcohol. Completely sober. Like, no little glass of wine here to kill a soda there. I'm talking completely sober. I'm talking I go to a bar in order a sparkling water with lime. Sober.
possibly for the rest of my life. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wow, that's great. That's amazing. That's beautiful. In a lot of ways, I agree with you. However, this is not a choice that I made completely on my own. If it had been a choice that I had made completely on my own, I think I'd feel a little bit more excited about it. I was forced to make this decision in some ways against my own will. Let me explain.
It all started in 2021. In the midst of COVID, Emma is drinking a lot of alcohol. Okay. Emma was drinking a lot of alcohol. I wouldn't say I was abusing it by, I mean,
I think maybe a little bit, but I wouldn't say any more than the average college student. It's very common for kids in their early 20s to drink a little bit too much. That's not out of the ordinary. Does it make it right? Does it make it healthy? Absolutely not, but it's to be expected in a way. I was drinking a lot of alcohol, particularly vodka.
I mean, when five o'clock would hit, I was making a drink at best and taking shots at worst. You know, COVID was rough. I think a lot of us were drinking. And so I was one of them. I was one of them. And I didn't see it as a problem at the time. I saw it as normal. And I still
in a way, see it as normal, but now hindsight being 2020, I look at it and I'm like, just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's okay for you to do it, right? Just because everybody else drinks a lot in their 20s, just because everybody else was drinking a lot because it was the pandemic and everybody was feeling nihilistic and confused doesn't mean it's okay that I did it.
Not everybody makes that choice, so I don't give myself a pass because everybody else was doing it. I still see that as problematic and unsustainable behavior. Anyway, I was drinking a lot, 2021.
And at a certain point, I started to develop rashes and hives, particularly on my face whenever I drink. I actually wouldn't say whenever I drink because I was drinking kind of a lot and I wasn't getting rashes every single time, but I would say 75% of the time when I drink, I would develop hives.
And it was really frustrating for me because I'd be drinking and then all of a sudden, my face would start to feel really hot. And if I wasn't wearing makeup, you could very quickly start to see red patches all over my face and on my neck. And my face would swell up a little bit.
And not only was it incredibly uncomfortable and hot like my face just felt hot in swollen, but it looked kind of jarring like you look at my face and be like oh she's definitely not doing well like something's going on. And this would happen you know after two drinks right.
And for a long time, I was perplexed by this because it wasn't happening every single time. I think if it had been happening every single time I would drink, I would have paid closer attention to it. But at the time, I wasn't in a particularly protective state of mind, whereas now I'm very protective of myself. When something starts to go wrong or go awry, I immediately am checking in on it. If I feel like something's off in my body, I listen to it.
because I care about my well-being today. But there's been times in the past where I haven't. And in 2021, I wouldn't say I really cared about myself very much. So me getting hives was the least of my worries. I was like, I just want the hives to go away so I can keep having fun and have another tequila soda or have another vodka seltzer. You know, like that's what my priority was more than anything. I was like, I just want to keep drinking and having fun and escaping.
And I want to look cute and having hives all over your face and getting kind of puffy doesn't look very cute. Even when I was wearing makeup, you could still kind of tell that something was wrong with my face a little bit, but it would eventually pass. And yeah, it was very odd, but it wouldn't happen every time. So I was like, it can't be that big of a deal if it's not happening every time I drink. Like it was sort of Russian roulette. I didn't know when it was going to happen.
And I think in retrospect, it's bizarre to me that I didn't pay more attention to that. Like when your body has a reaction like that over and over and over again, even if it's not every single time, that's still a sign that something's wrong, right? Something's not right. But because drinking was such a non-negotiable part of my life at that time,
Like it was a huge source of entertainment for me. It was how I spent time with those that I spent time with during that time, like not my family, but you know, my friends, significant others. Like that was very much the center of what we were all doing together.
Again, which is normal, right? Because we're at college age, partying and drinking is a big part of that, right? So it's not completely out of the ordinary. But again, that was my number one priority was to maintain that.
as a part of my routine in life. So to look at alcohol is potentially a problem for me physically, health-wise, it was like, I don't even care. It wasn't even something I was giving any attention to because I was like, this is such a big part of my life right now. There's no way I'm going to stop. It was weird, but it was all subconscious.
I was like, so in the routine of drinking a lot that it was like, yeah, like stopping or cutting back at the time, like didn't even cross my mind. Okay. And then that sort of continued, 2021, 2022, then around 2023.
I stopped drinking vodka and I started drinking tequila. In addition to that, I stopped drinking as much. Okay, so my habits around drinking started to shift. I was still drinking relatively frequently, but it wasn't as much of a habit. It wasn't as big of a part of my life. And the rashes sort of stopped. I kind of stopped getting the rash. I would get them occasionally, but before it was like frequently.
I would get a rash almost every time I'd drink. It was sort of unpredictable, but it was more frequent than it wasn't. When I cut back and started drinking tequila, they pretty much stopped completely. Alcohol slowly exited my life. It wasn't playing as big of a role. I wasn't relying on it as much for entertainment.
I was starting to realize, hey, you know, I kind of have relied on alcohol to be social for a while now. Maybe I should take off the training wheels and be social without it, like a big girl. And so yeah, my relationship to alcohol improved and it seemed I wasn't having any adverse reactions to it and it was kind of great.
And now 2024, where we are today. I mean, we're at the end of 2024 when I'm recording this, but 2024. In the beginning of the year, I was still on my tequila soda grind. Like that's what I was drinking when I was going out, you know? And then as the year progressed, I kind of stopped enjoying drinking hard liquor and I started getting into wine and
for majority of this year i was drinking a lot of wine okay i i became a wine girl and my desire to feel drunk or buzz pretty much went out the window and it was all about the experience of drinking the wine i like the flavor of wine i like
the, you know, different types of wine and like being like, Oh, I'm gonna order this one. Oh, this one sucks. I'm gonna get a different glass next next time the waiter comes back. Like I loved the experience of wine and it became more about the experience of like having wine with food, having wine at a wine bar, you know, drinking it slowly, savoring it, not really getting drunk anymore, barely even feeling buzz, but like enjoying the experience.
I absolutely fell in love with wine. Everything about it, the culture around it, the experience of drinking it, the taste of it, the way it pairs with food, the, you know, going into wine shops and picking out bottles of wine, splitting a bottle of wine with somebody. Like I just fell in love with wine. Okay. Like a complete fucking person entering their mid twenties. Okay. Like, like everyone does, I started to love wine.
And I think ultimately it was a really healthy thing for me because it made my relationship with alcohol healthier than it's ever been. It made it about a beautiful experience, not about getting super drunk, not about, you know, using it to help with the nerves. It was more about providing third spaces for me to hang out at, like a wine bar. It was about having something fun to order with my dinner at a restaurant.
It was about the places that wine would take me. The fun little wine shops in LA that I would find. It was about that. It wasn't about getting drunk. I really loved that about it. I was like, wow, this is adulthood. This is maturity. This is beauty. This is the beauty of wine. I get it now. I'm in. Then there's something about it reminds me of coffee, too.
There's a ritual to it. It's just beautiful. Anyway, but this summer during the heat of my wine craze, something kind of odd happened. I was on vacation in the south of France and I was drinking a lot of wine on this trip, not a lot of wine, but I was like having a glass of wine in the afternoon and then having another glass of wine at dinner. Like I was having wine.
And one of the days on the trip, I have two glasses of wine, white wine, nothing out of the ordinary at all. And I get back to the hotel that night and I'm feeling incredibly nauseous. Okay. And I'm confused because I'm like, I had two glasses of wine. Like this is not anything out of the ordinary. You know, what is going on?
And I'm in my hotel room and I'm feeling progressively more and more nauseous, but I'm becoming progressively more and more confused because I'm like, I've thrown up from alcohol before. I've drank too much before for sure. That is not what's going on here at all. I had two glasses of wine and I ate a lot that day.
too. Because I know, you know, obviously your sensitivity to alcohol goes up when you haven't eaten food. I had eaten so much that day. I had a lot of stuff in my stomach. Okay. So that wasn't a concern. It was not adding up to me why I was experiencing like
horrific nausea after two glasses of wine. But yet, I knew it felt like alcohol nausea, you know? And so I was like, what? This is so weird. I ended up sorry if this is TMI, sorry if you get grossed out by this. I did end up throwing up. And when I threw up, it was like, it was not just like a cute little throw up. This is so gross in TMI. I'm so sorry if this is something that grosses you out, just skip ahead like 20 seconds.
My body wanted the wine out of my body so badly that, like, I was really throwing up, like, projectile, you know what I mean? Like, it was, like, with force. Like, my body was, like, get this shit out. It was, like, pushing, pushing. You know, like, you know, when you're sick and you're throwing up, it's, like, hard to throw up kind of.
It was like easy. Like my body wanted this out, right? So I threw up. I felt so much better. I went to sleep that night and I woke up the next day and everything was fine. And I kind of just wrote it off as like a weird one off sort of thing. I was like, all right. Well, that was sort of weird, but whatever. Maybe I had food poisoning or maybe it was from the wine or I'm like, I just didn't know, but it didn't happen again. And I continued to drink wine and it didn't happen again. So like, all right, we're good.
Now, that was during the summer, okay? So that was like probably August or like July or August, right? Actually, it was July. That was July. Okay. Fast forward to the last month and half, two months, okay? October, November of this year, the same year. The last few times that I've had wine,
I have gotten horrible nausea, horrible nausea. Okay. And it's really weird because I'm not drinking a lot of wine. I'm having a glass or two max over the course of like five, six hours over the course of like a dinner and then going out for one more glass of wine after. Okay. Extreme nausea, like overwhelming. And last weekend, the nausea got so bad.
that I threw up again after, okay, the night that I threw up, I had one glass of wine with dinner and I ate a lot of dinner. So it was like, it should have been happy in my tummy, right? And then another half glass of wine. So not even a full two glasses. It was a glass and a half projectile vomiting into the toilet. Okay. And I was like, all right, something's going on. And then I sort of was paying attention to my body. Like, what else am I feeling? My heart was racing.
My head was hurting. I was like, something's really wrong. I had a glass and a half of wine. You know, like what's happening? But then I thought about it and I was like, the last few times I drank, I've gotten extreme nausea, like something weird's going on. And then it clicked. Why does my own mother not drink alcohol? Because she has an alcohol intolerance. What is an alcohol intolerance, you may ask?
Alcohol intolerance is caused by a genetic condition in which the body can't break down alcohol efficiently. The only way to prevent these uncomfortable reactions is to avoid alcohol. Now, what are the symptoms of alcohol intolerance? Facial redness, flushing, sound familiar?
Red itchy skin bumps hives sound familiar worsening of preexisting asthma I don't have asthma runny or stuffy nose weirdly enough that has happened to me many many times after a night of drinking just having like weirdly bad allergies.
low blood pressure. I'm not sure what that feels like, but I probably have experienced it. nausea and vomiting sound familiar in diarrhea. Doesn't sound familiar probably, but not to tell you too much. That has always been a part of the drinking experience for me.
Oh, I might be experiencing alcohol intolerance. So I looked into it. And basically, it's interesting because apparently this is caused by inherited genetic traits.
Having hay fever allergies from the seasons and stuff, which I do have very badly. That is a risk factor. And according to the internet, having a mild intolerance to alcohol or something else in alcoholic beverages might not require a trip to the doctor. Simply just avoid alcohol, limit how much you drink or avoid certain types of alcoholic beverages.
So now I'm faced with the choice. There's definitely something going on with me and with alcohol.
So now I'm faced with a really harsh reality, which is that alcohol simply does not agree with my body. Now, I could go to the doctor and get it checked out and potentially understand like, if there's certain types of alcohol that impact me worse or if I should just avoid everything altogether, like I could get some sort of confirmation from a doctor.
Or I could save myself an afternoon and just take this as a sign that maybe I shouldn't drink at all anymore. Now, when I first came to this conclusion, I was like, that's not really that big of a deal. And then about five minutes into coming to that conclusion, I genuinely started to mourn the loss of alcohol in my life, like genuinely. I was, I genuinely began to feel sad.
Number one, because, and this is not like morally the most admirable thing I'm ever going to say, but I don't have a lot of fun stuff left. Okay, I used to have a really severe nicotine addiction. That's something that I've been working on.
Over the past year, I've come a really long way. I'm not ready to talk about it yet because I want to make sure I'm really in a good space before I discuss it. But let's just say that I'm not consuming nicotine on a consistent basis anymore. Like I'm going weeks and weeks and weeks without having any nicotine at all.
I don't even drink to get drunk anymore. Like I was just drinking for the experience of alcohol. Like I can't smoke weed because like it gives me panic attacks and it's actually given me like it's triggered some really unfavorable mental
Health challenges for me, smoking weed, eating edibles. I've had some really bad experiences that have left lingering effects for me mentally. What do I fucking have? Everybody has their vice. They smoke cigarettes, they have a vape, they drink wine, they smoke weed. None of these things are good. None of these things are healthy. But I feel like everyone fucking has with at least one.
in every single fucking one for me. It doesn't work with my body. And maybe it doesn't work with anyone's body and I'm just more sensitive than others. But part of me is like, for fuck's sake, let me have a vice, god damn it. I look up to the heavens above and I say, where's mine? Okay? Like now I can't even have a glass of fucking wine. Are you kidding me? Like, I feel like I've
Holy shit. Like I'm somehow by some miracle almost completely like eradicated my nicotine addiction. Like the one thing I had that I liked was having a glass of fucking wine on the weekends. God damn it. Now what? I was overcome with anger being like, where's my vice? It honestly made me want to go back to nicotine. I was like, this is so unfair. But then, you know, I picked myself back up and I was like, Emma, no.
No, you can't look at it like that because none of this stuff is healthy and you aren't owed any of these. You know what I mean? Like, that's a weird way of thinking about it. Like, you don't need to have a vice. In fact, you should be striving to not have one. And in a way, it's sort of a blessing that my body's
reacting negatively to these things because it's so much harder to quit when your body's not, right? Like honestly, quitting nicotine became easier once I realized that not having nicotine in my system made me less anxious. And I was struggling with such severe anxiety that once I realized that my body felt better without it, even though I was still having withdrawals and I was still like feeling for it in a way, like, you know, it made it easier knowing that like it was having a negative effect on my body.
If I had not started like throwing up from wine and if I hadn't gotten hives from vodka years ago and I hadn't connected the dots today and been like, okay, obviously, there's a reoccurring theme here and it's progressively, it's getting more and more frequent, you know, I would keep drinking forever. However, you know, if you read any article today about alcohol, there's no argument that alcohol is healthy for you at all.
You know, like there's more and more studies coming up being like, no, you just shouldn't drink alcohol at all. Right. Like there's, there used to be sort of claims like, you know, red wine is good for you. Now it's like, no, no, the healthiest amount of alcohol is zero. No exceptions. Right. That's what I've seen on the internet and scientists talking about and stuff. So as you can tell, I experienced a mix of emotions.
feeling sort of bad for myself in a weird way like Oh poor Emma she doesn't get to have any vices, you know like no smoking cigarettes for her well I never smoked cigarettes but no vaping for her no nicotine for her no marijuana for her now not even a fucking glass of wine with dinner for her like she get I mean for fuck's sake I feel like I'm like a nun or something you know it's it's incredible and I don't even I'm not here
By choice, I'm like here because my body has made the choice for me. And in some ways it feels challenging and unfair like why don't I get to have these fun things. But then in other ways I'm like what a fucking miracle because these things are unhealthy, dangerous and horrible for your health and overall physical and mental well-being. So it's complicated and I'm sharing the fact that I.
feel sad that I don't get to have any vices it seems anymore because that's the true like that's that's a true honest reaction to this reality for me. If I came on here and said it's really a miracle because this stuff's so unhealthy.
So I'm so glad. In what way would that be helpful to you or to anyone? Because then when you are faced with quitting various vices in your life and you feel like, fuck, I need a vice. I can't lose all my vices. I need my vices. When you're struggling with that feeling, maybe you can think of me.
You know, I know you're feeling. It's one of the hardest parts of it all. It's like, come on, don't I get an emotional crutch? Like, come on, we need emotional crutches. I can't take all of mine away, but you can and you should. It's a lot easier said than done though, but you know what I mean? Like, it's like this almost, in a way, like triggered me to be like, oh, I want to buy a vape now.
because I can't have wine. So I want to buy a vape so that I can have something that gives me that weird feeling that I can't even explain of satisfaction on the weekends when I want to celebrate. You know, it's like there's something about a glass of wine. There's something about having nicotine that like, it makes you feel really good. It makes you feel celebratory.
It makes you feel loose. Like there's all these things about it that just make you feel good. And it's really hard, I think, for many of us to imagine a life without these things. And so even though I was aware and I am aware that this is ultimately a net positive in my life, and this is actually kind of an amazing thing, in the moment I was mourning the loss of this, the realization was challenging for me to accept
It came more uncomfortably than I expected. Like I've always preferred say nicotine over alcohol, you know? So like it's only now that I don't have nicotine and now I don't have alcohol. It's like, oh my God, I have nothing. I have nothing.
And I was thinking about it. I was like, what is the thing I'm really going to miss the most? And what I realized was more than anything else, more than the celebratory feeling, more than the chemicals that it releases in my brain that make me feel good, more than anything else, I'm going to miss the third space, going to a bar.
I love going to a fucking wine bar on a Saturday night and sitting and having two glasses of wine over the course of a few hours, talking to friends, meeting new people randomly, like, I fucking love that. And it's one of the things I look forward to all week, you know, like having a glass or two of wine at a wine bar after dinner.
I could not adore that more. And now I'm going to feel weirdly fraudulent in this environment. Like going to a bar and ordering a sparkling water is like, it's fine. By the way, and if anyone has anything to say about it, there are a piece of shit. It's totally fine, but it does feel a little bit like you don't feel like you're participating in the environment that you're in. You do feel kind of fraudulent. You feel like, well, why am I even here?
I'm not even purchasing something of value from this business. You know what I mean? Like, what do I do? And, you know, luckily at my favorite wine bar, they sell other things. They have like apple cider and stuff, but it's like, do I even fucking like apple cider? Not really.
I don't like juice. I don't like drinking juice. Okay. Like that's not my vibe. I don't like that shit. So it feels pointless. It's hard to find purpose in like going to that third space now and hanging out when I'm not even participating in the activity that that place has to offer.
And I think now more than ever, I personally really value third spaces. And if you don't know what a third space is, it's like not your work, it's not your home, it's a third space. It's like a place to hang out, meet people, be social, that's not a part of your daily routine, work and home.
So, you know, can I still go to these third spaces, go to a bar and order a sparkling water with lime and just sit there? I mean, yes, but I don't know, like something about it feels weird. And so now I'm sort of faced with this dilemma of like, what am I going to do with my weekends, I guess.
And I've already thought about it a little bit. Instead of drinking on the weekends, put more emphasis on going out for a yummy meal and then going to bed maybe a little bit earlier. I didn't come on here today and tell you this story with some sort of beautiful conclusion prepared. I'm just sharing this new reality.
that is honestly kind of hard for me to swallow. Like, you know, as I'm recording this, is it Friday? It might even be Friday when I'm recording this. It is fucking Friday, okay? It's fucking Friday. And all I want to do is go out and have a glass of wine and I can't. I can't. And I'm fucking sad about it, to be honest.
I'm still sad. And, you know, I have a plan and like, you know, maybe I'll go to dinner this weekend or maybe I'll go see a movie or, you know, I have lots of amazing people to spend my time with. Like, it's all good, right? But like, I'm fucking sad.
So consider this part one of my sort of non-voluntary sobriety journey. I really do think that not drinking will ultimately have a positive effect on my life. I don't really know what that's going to look like yet. I'm excited to share that with you one day and hopefully come to you with inspiring results that will maybe inspire you
to potentially consider the lifestyle yourself, even if your body does not hate alcohol and it's fine with it, but maybe it's the move anyway. I mean, it's definitely the healthiest option. So listen, hopefully I can come to you soon with a more inspiring story. But for right now, I'm just being honest, like this is a reality that I just found out about myself and I'm feeling a little bit bummed out about it, but I'm going
to make the most of the experience. And hey, you know, as tough as it is, I'll tell you, my body is going to be healthy from this. It's going to be healthier from this. And that's at least a good thing. So that's it. That's all I have for today.
Just a little update on my alcohol consumption. Can't drink anymore. So I'll let you know what kind of boring shit I get into, such as, I don't know, like building things out of Legos or maybe going to like movie streamings in the park. You know how they do that? Sometimes in like local parks, they'll like play a movie onto like a big projector screen in the park.
And there's like a bunch of five year olds there. Maybe I'll start getting into that or maybe I'll, you know, start getting into like coding or something. Maybe I'll fucking go to college. Maybe I'll go back to college. Definitely won't do that actually, but like maybe and maybe I'll fucking become a doctor with all this fucking free time I'm gonna have, not drinking alcohol and not puffing on my vape anymore. I'm gonna, I like, I might become the next fucking Einstein. I'll talk to you guys later.
I love you all. I appreciate you all. And I can't wait to come back to you in like six months and say sobriety from alcohol is fucking awesome. I know I'll come to you and say that in six months. So that's something to look forward to, but at least I'll have a story to back it up. All right. I love you all. I appreciate you all. Thanks for listening and hanging out.
I'll talk to you guys very soon. New episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Social media at anything goes. Find me at Emma Chamberlain and find my coffee company, ChamberlainCoffee.com or at Chamberlain Coffee. Love you. Talk to you soon and bye.
