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I stopped drinking on 20 December 2017. Over 30 years after I'd started.

Before I stopped, when I toyed with the possibility, I couldn't contemplate my life, as a lawyer, living in London, without booze. No. Nope. I imagined it would be like having a limb amputated, or someone switching off my best friend's life support machine. An unspeakable loss. My life would barely be worth living: smaller, greyer, boring-er, sadder, un-fun, rubbish. Over. I would become the virtue signalling gluten free vegan who no one wants at the party. Spurned for being self-righteous and dull. Justifiably so. No. Just no. Impossible.

I honestly did not know how I was meant to tackle the events that filled up my diary, without the sauce: client drinks, team drinks, colleagues visiting from overseas drinks, joining drinks, promotion drinks, leaving drinks, thank you drinks, it's-been-a-shit-day drinks, need-to-tell-you-something drinks, haven't-seen-you-in-ages drinks, the-weather's-amazing-let's-go-outside drinks, the-weather's-shit-and-I-need-a-drink drinks, it's my / your / the dog's birthday drinks, Christmas drinks x 117. (And let's not even get started with holidays and special occasions). You get the drift.

It's not that I was addicted. I was lucky, I could – kind of – take or leave booze. I didn't drink every day, I rarely drank at home and every so often had a dry month or two. But when the occasion called for it, I loved to drink. While the first drink was always the best, it was rarely the last. And I loved what I thought booze did for me: how it helped me decompress, be less anxious and let go of my tendency to control everything. How it made awkward encounters tolerable, bores bearable (well, some of them anyway). How it helped me bond with colleagues to passersby, and made everyone (myself included, thankfully) so much more fascinating. How it helped get me to sleep (increasingly often, in the bar, before I got home to bed. No, not a good look).

And I loved to drink despite the fact that alcohol made me feel like total crap: anxious, sick, self-hating and guilty, for poisoning myself and getting into stupid situations. Not remembering what moronic things I'd said to my boss, or how, when or with whom, I'd got home. The hangover, fear and self-recrimination could last for days. I spent many billable hours as a trainee throwing up in the loos at work after a night out. 15 years later, I spent a day throwing up in between presentations when meeting a new team of colleagues for the first time (classy, I know). We laughed about it over drinks that night.

After flirting unsuccessfully with moderation (my frontal cortex was having none of that), I started to think about stopping, probably a good 5 years or so before I did. I wrote about it in my journal late at night, enveloped in shame, wondering whether I had an alcohol problem, and sloshing the taste of sobriety around in my head. Whichever way I went with it, I thought it was impossible to live my life and not drink.

But slowly, the idea took root, and my brain started to adjust to the possibility.

The Body Holiday in St Lucia, March 2017: "Give us your body for a week, and we'll give you back your mind". Having donated my body and a substantial chunk of my savings, on the penultimate day of my holiday, I found myself googling "hospitals in St Lucia" while I lay in bed shaking, sweating and vomiting. I had spent my mornings at beach bootcamp, yoga-ing and falling over on paddle boards. By early evening, we were drinking rum sundowners and propping up the piano bar late into the night. I realised then that I loved two things equally: early mornings, being outdoors and active; and late nights, talking shit with strangers and being the last to leave the party. I couldn't do both. I had to make a choice.

9 months later, I made my choice and I stopped. First it was easy, as I got sick, so I didn't feel like drinking. Then it was January and no-one in London was drinking. Then I started to feel different, better, so I carried on not drinking. I used the Sober Time app which counts the days since your last drink. 10 days, 20 days, 45 days. I was damned if that counter was going to go back to 0, even though no-one else was watching. I didn't decide there and then to never drink again. I just decided that I needed a break, and would see what happened. I stopped counting when I got to 365 days.

The changes didn't all come straightaway. But, over time, everything changed. Everything. My anxiety reduced. I slept differently, better (and not in bars this time); I remembered dreams for the first time in years. I reclaimed hours and hours of my time. I had way more energy. I got up early to run before work. I discovered weekend mornings. I made plans for Sundays. I stopped eating crap late at night or early the morning after. I dropped weight. I looked better, felt better. I got stronger and fitter. I ranted less. My hard edges softened. My relationships with others improved. I connected better. My relationship with myself improved. I became much, much happier.

Judith Harris

Two years on, and I am still a lawyer, living in London. My life is neither over nor rubbish. I'm happier now than I've ever been, and that's saying something as I'm a gazillion years old. Granted, I am more selective in how I spend my evenings, but when the occasion calls for it, I love a good night out. I am able to stay awake and upright all evening. I don't turn into a mashed up ranting idiot. I can dance like a moron because I know noone will care or remember in the morning (see pic on the right, me in the pink 80s dress with inflatable mobile, yes, I know it's a strong look. There was much sober and arguably moronic dancing that night). I get home safely and remember the journey. I spend a fraction of what I used to. The absence of hangovers continues to be the source of great joy and occasional smugness.

Don't get me wrong, not drinking is not always easy. People interrogate my reasons for stopping: Am I an alcoholic? Am I pregnant? What is wrong with me? What is the REASON? There must be a reason (er, no there mustn't). I wasn't THAT BAD, so why did I have to stop? I was more fun and cuddly when I was drinking (yes, that is wrong on so many levels). People still ask me when I'm going to start drinking again.

While many people get it these days, I still come up against those who don't like that I'm not drinking. And don't want to hear why I'm not drinking. And urge me to '..go on, just have one'. I get it, I was like that too before I stopped. We take it as a judgment on our own behaviour. But now I'm on the other side, I can also see how damaging that can be for people who know that booze is not good for them and really want to cut down or stop, but get talked out of it, time after time.

But, in all of this, I've not experienced one downside – not one – that can touch the sides of the joy that comes from waking up in the morning, hangover and self-recrimination free. Every single day.

It took me 30 years to work out that I was wrong about booze. I'm writing this on the off chance that it might resonate with one person who reads it, and thinks maybe, just maybe, they've been wrong about this too. Because hands down, this is one of the best things I have ever done.

Interested in taking a break for a bit? Here are my top tips for an alcohol free night out*

1. Don't make a big deal of it. Be positive and resolute. Say you're not drinking tonight / this week / this month. You don't need to give anyone a reason but have one up your sleeve in case you're pressed e.g. I'm swimming the Channel in the morning so need a clear head, or similar.
2. Ask the bar staff to make you a drink in a cocktail glass. Add a slice of lime, people will assume you're drinking a G&T and leave you alone.
3. Find some good non-alcoholic drink options. There are some great low or no alcohol beers, kombuchas and other fancy schmancy drinks available now. Some of them are gross and taste like liquid sugar. A lot of them are drinkable.
4. Everyone else doing shots? You can join in by doing water shots. Trust me, it has a placebo effect, it may make you feel drunk (but if you do, double check it was water, not tequila, in the glass…).
5. Don't be smug. A smug sober person is not a good look (I've tried it, believe me).
6. Being dry doesn't mean being dull. Don't be dull. Otherwise people will blame the fact that you're not drinking (I've tried that too).
7. Dance. A lot. Noone will watch, care or remember.
8. Hang out with more non-drinkers. There are lots of us out there. If you join in, you will make it even better and cooler.
9. Have fun.
10. If you are keen to reframe your relationship with booze, but struggling, there are loads of brilliant resources out there these days from support groups, to mindful drinking events, to alcohol free bars, to an array of literature. Get researching.

(*for those, like me, who aren't dependent on alcohol, which I appreciate is a totally different issue requiring a totally different approach)

Judith Harris is an international practice development lawyer at DLA Piper. This post was originally published on LinkedIn on February 18, 2020.