The Second Shift

I thought the transformation was over.

For the last few years, alcohol has occupied very little space in my life. I drink rarely, and when I do it’s deliberate and forgettable. The work of getting here, examining beliefs I’d carried for decades, dismantling habits I’d never questioned, and sitting with the discomfort of doing things differently, was largely behind me. I assumed I had arrived at the destination.

A few months ago, during a long lunch at Ballyowen Golf Club, I noticed something I couldn’t quite name. Later, I wrote about the experience, but I treated it as an isolated moment and didn’t think it pointed to anything larger. Since then, however, I’ve noticed the same feeling at restaurants, on vacation, and at home. At some point, it stopped feeling like a coincidence. One observation is a moment. The same observation in five different settings is a pattern.

I’m starting to think there’s a second shift, and that the first one wasn’t the whole story.

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In the first shift, I changed my relationship with alcohol. The second shift may be me realizing that we actually broke up.

Temperates

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For a long time after alcohol stopped being a regular part of my life, my attention had simply moved. I wasn’t fighting cravings or talking myself out of a glass of wine anymore. What I was doing was scanning. If I was going to a game, I wanted to know what nonalcoholic options they had. If I was traveling, I checked airport lounges for NA beer. If I was meeting friends for dinner, I’d often glance at the beverage menu before I arrived, wanting to know whether there was a suitable replacement available.

I wasn’t managing alcohol anymore. I was managing the replacement.

I don’t regret that phase. Replacement beverages were the bridge. They let me keep certain rituals while letting go of the thing inside them, and they taught me that a vacation, a barbecue, a dinner out, or an ordinary summer afternoon could still be enjoyable without alcohol at the center.

I still enjoy many of them.

This evening, after coming back from a walk, I grabbed an ice-cold Corona NA, dropped a lime wedge into the bottle, and sat down in the kitchen.

The moment it hit my lips, I noticed something. Not because of the drink itself, but because of how little thought surrounded it. I wasn’t comparing it to alcohol. I wasn’t evaluating it as an alternative. I wasn’t wondering whether it was good enough to replace anything. It simply sounded good after a walk, so I grabbed one.

Alcohol wasn’t in the bottle, but it also wasn’t in the conversation.

That distinction is the whole thing.

The first shift is changing your relationship with alcohol. You begin to notice how often alcohol had simply come along for the ride, attached to dinners, vacations, celebrations, and ordinary evenings without much thought. That shift is the hard one, and once you’re through it, you can feel how much room it gives back.

The first shift required intention. This one didn’t. I only recognized it after it was already underway.

A year ago, I would have searched for a nonalcoholic option almost everywhere I went. Today, I still appreciate having options, but the urgency is gone. A thoughtful NA menu is a nice thing. The lack of one no longer registers as a problem. Water is fine. A Corona NA is fine.

But replacement isn’t where the story ends.

For years, the question was what I was drinking.

Then the question became what I was drinking instead.

Lately, I’ve started to notice something else.

The question itself is disappearing.

The first shift is the one you set out to make.

The second shift may be when neither alcohol nor its replacement occupies much mental space at all.