I did it.

I survived my first week of April without consuming a drop of alcohol.

To preface this entry to those who are new to reading my blog, I am NOT an alcoholic. I repeat, I am NOT an alcoholic.

To get some of you up to speed, I recently hit my point of absolute misery when it came to drinking with friends on the weekends. Going out until 3AM in New York City while you are in training mode for a Half-Marathon and Marathon do not mesh well at all. I learned this the hard way, therefore recently vowed to give up drinking any type of alcohol for the entire month of April in lieu of my Spring races

I must say, it’s actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. However, here are the down sides:

• Going out to a club and/or bar in New York City while you are sober and everyone else around you is intoxicated is pretty weird. You notice how stupid everyone actually looks as opposed to everything being funny. It’s definitely not as funny when you’re sober…
• Regardless of whether you drink or not, certain places still require a cover charge to get in. So even though you’re not buying drinks, you still have to pay to go to a place that is dimly lit with random spurts of blinding strobe lights and ear deafening music blasting , all while watching people act like morons
• If you’re tired and not having fun, it’s better to just go home instead of being out and forcing yourself to stay awake when you don’t need to be

Regardless, I felt really good about myself at the fact that I didn’t succumb to peer pressure.

On a more positive note, here are the up sides to not drinking

• You really do spend less money when you don’t have to buy alcohol
• You wake up in the morning remembering EVERYTHING
• You save yourself empty calories and extra pounds
• You’re not extremely susceptible to getting sick

There are definitely more up sides than that, but I chose to shed light on the obvious ones.

I had a great weekend despite my lack of alcohol consumption which ultimately proves that you don’t need to drink to have a good time.

I was able to get a (slightly) long run on Saturday afternoon in long-awaited, beautiful Spring-ish weather. I only was able to get in 10 miles in 1 hour and 27 minutes, but it still felt great.

I went back home to New Jersey for the second weekend in a row. I got to hang out with friends from home and spend time with family for my Mom’s birthday, which is always a good time in my book.

Moral of the story: Drinking is not all it’s cracked up to be. If anything, it’s less.