Why One Beer Is Too Many

And a story about my time as a corporate softball league superstar...

When I first started exploring sobriety, I didn’t quit drinking all at once.

I cut back little by little. I took a month off on multiple occasions. This went on for nearly three years from 2020-2022. Gradually decreasing how much alcohol I was consuming on a regular basis.

At one point, I only drank on weekends and at special events — even then, it was just a drink or two. I felt like I was doing really well compared to my blackout party days during COVID quarantine.

But I also still felt stuck. Like alcohol had some kind of grip on me I couldn’t quite shake.

One of the clearest moments came during my company’s co-ed softball league.

The games were super casual and almost everyone cracked open a beer on game days. Not to get drunk, just because that’s what we did.

Having a beer in hand became part of the uniform. It was expected & normalized.

So I would drink too. A little Thursday night brewski at the softball field never hurt nobody, right?

No one was out of control. No one said anything rude. Nothing “bad” happened.

But I would go home feeling like I’d let myself down. To be clear — not because of how I played (let the record show I am SKILLED at softball )

I felt like I let myself down because deep down, I knew I didn’t need that beer. I just didn’t want to feel different or make anyone else uncomfortable. But I felt uncomfortable drinking at this point.

That was when I realized: Even “just one” matters.
Even the easy, casual beers can keep us from moving forward. Then, when I showed up the next week with a kombucha instead… no one cared.

But I did.

Because for the first time, I was showing up fully as myself without the buzz, without the buffer, and without feeling like I needing to blend in.

And that felt better than any beer or home run ever has.