Thirty days. Then Thirty More. Embracing An Alcohol-Free Lifestyle

I went into June with a challenge I’d set myself. Thirty days alcohol-free. No grand announcement, no dramatic backstory - just a decision, and a month to see it through.

I want to be honest about what I expected. I thought it would be harder than it was.

I’ve stopped drinking before. A full year when I turned fifty - and I was proud of it, genuinely proud of it. Then I celebrated turning fifty-one with a glass of champagne.

Looking back, I can see exactly what that was. It wasn’t a reward exactly, or a treat. It was a door I opened without really thinking about where it led. Because from that moment, it was a slippery slope. One glass became two. Two nights became three. Three became four. Before I’d really noticed, a bottle of wine in a single sitting had become a daily habit again.

It wasn’t like I’d hit a crisis or reached rock bottom - nothing quite so dramatic. Just a quiet drift in a direction I didn’t particularly want to be going, and the kind of drift that’s easy to miss precisely because it happens so gradually. It’s a decision you stop making. There’s no moment where you sit down and think, right, I’m going to drink every night from now on. It just starts happening. And because it happens gradually, and because it feels normal by the time it’s daily, you don’t notice it’s become a habit until you stop and look back at the week and realise there wasn’t a single evening without a glass in your hand.

That habit creep is something I think a lot of women will recognise. The slow accumulation of something that started as pleasure and became routine. I’ve never been someone who thinks beating yourself up about these things gets you anywhere. I believe in noticing. And once I noticed, I was glad I did something about it.

The Mounjaro Piece

I’m currently taking Mounjaro. I’m saying that plainly because I think the silence around it does nobody any favours.

I understand why people keep it private. Weight and body are personal territory, and nobody owes anyone an explanation for the choices they make about their own health. But when you have a voice, when you talk from lived experience, when you’re inviting other people into honest conversation - silence starts to feel like a different kind of thing. It starts to feel like shame, even when that’s not the intention.

There’s no shame in using every tool available to feel as well as you can. None. And if my saying so openly helps even one woman feel less alone in her own experience, then it’s worth saying.

Mounjaro likely turned down the volume on certain cravings during June. The wine o’clock noise in my head was quieter than I expected, and I think that’s part of the reason. There’s a whole separate conversation to be had about Mounjaro - its effects, its relationship with appetite and craving, what it’s like to be on it - and I’ll write that blog another time. For now I just want it on the record, honestly and without apology.

What the Month Actually Felt Like

Easier than expected. That’s the most truthful summary.

Sleep improved - noticeably, if not dramatically. Getting up in the morning felt easier. My skin felt a little less reactive. I felt brighter, clearer, more like myself. I wouldn’t say I was suddenly bursting with energy - Mounjaro has its own relationship with that - but the fog that comes with regular drinking simply wasn’t there.

And the thing that surprised me most: I didn’t miss it. The habit had felt more ingrained than it actually was. And knowing that - really knowing it, from experience rather than theory - felt like useful information about myself.

Why July Then

I’m someone who likes to have a challenge on the go. But the decision to carry on into July with an alcohol-free lifestyle wasn’t really about the challenge anymore.

June was a good month. Genuinely good. Sleep better, mornings easier, head clearer, no hangovers, no fuzzy Sundays, no quiet guilt about how much I’d poured the night before.

If it’s been a really good month, why change anything?

So I’m not. July it is.

I’m not here to tell you what to do with your evenings or your wine glass. This is just my experience, honestly told. If any part of it sounds familiar - the gradual drift, the daily habit that stopped feeling like a choice, the curiosity about what life might feel like without it - then I hope it’s useful to read.

With Love. Alex x