3 Ways Quitting Drinking Accelerated The Trajectory Of My Career

Picture it: You’ve spent the last few years (maybe even decades) establishing yourself in your career. You’ve put in the blood, sweat, and tears. You've rubbed elbows, kicked ass, and taken names.

But - if you’re being honest - it’s freaking stressful. Being “on” all day, taking on extra responsibilities - and often doing things yourself because you’re not sure anyone else can meet your high expectations - leaves you feeling exhausted at the end of the day.

To top it off, your chosen career comes with a lot of stress…

…You’re responsible for big numbers and goals.

…Or you’re charged with carrying the weight of the world in the work you do.

…Maybe you even see difficult or horrific things during your day-to-day life.

All you want to do when you get home is have a moment of reprieve. 

But, can you even have that? 

You also have a never-ending list of domestic or family responsibilities that land squarely on your shoulders. You’re trying to do it all and hold it all together. Frankly, you can’t wait for that moment when you have the chance to relax and unwind.

These days, unwinding looks like checking out with a glass of wine, sinking into your sofa and burying yourself in the latest reality TV drama, dragging yourself to bed, and doing it all again tomorrow.

Or, perhaps you make it until the weekend before drowning your sorrows with a night or two out on the town. This inevitably leaves you going to bed on Sunday night with a not-so-cute case of the Sunday Scaries.

The result? You’re frequently dragging yourself into work in a mild fog…

…You’re never quite operating at full capacity.

…You’ve gotten so used to shuffling through this work hard, play hard routine that it all feels so normal.

…And it’s not like your routine is any different from your colleagues - it seems like everyone is going through the same motions. It’s practically a rite of passage.

And yet, you have a sense that there’s something missing…like you are meant for something bigger, although you can’t really put your finger on what that looks like. 

You sense that something isn’t fully clicking. Despite your outward success, you don’t feel fulfilled or content on the inside. 

This doesn’t make sense, you have everything you thought you wanted, but you can’t help but wonder, isn’t there something more? You’re longing for less stress, more ease. You know you are meant for more…you just can’t quite put your finger on what more looks like.

Sound familiar?

I bet it does because this is the exact story I hear from powerful, passionate, high-performing women every single day. The story may have different characters, but the arc is always the same: Powerhouse woman drowning her sorrows with a glass of wine or cocktail, feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled.

This is exactly where I found myself about a decade ago. I’d spent years making a name for myself in a high-stress career that was no longer fulfilling me. I felt stuck on a ladder I was tired of climbing, but - because I was spending my weekends drowning my sorrows out on the social scene - I didn’t have the clarity, confidence, or wherewithal to make a change.

It wasn’t until I decided I was ready to change my relationship with alcohol that my entire life changed.

Let’s be clear, changing my relationship with alcohol didn’t make sense. I was only a casual, social drinker (albeit it heavy at times). I didn’t have a problem or meet the traditional criteria of someone who needed to get sober because alcohol was ruining my life. Quite the contrary, my drinking habits were entirely normal by societal expectations and my life appeared to be flourishing.

But we all know appearances can be deceiving. Internally, I was struggling. I was spinning my wheels trying to keep up with my peers both personally and professionally and on the inside I felt like I was barely holding it together.

Going sober simply didn’t make sense. I wasn’t dropping the ball or ruining relationships.

Behind the scenes I was even doing all of the health, wellness, and spirituality things (therapy, fitness, nutrition, journaling, affirmations, meditation…you name it). But nothing seemed to move the needle. At the end of the day, I was only marginally less stressed and I still felt off track.

I kept hearing a subtle, persistent nudge to examine my relationship with alcohol. Finally, on January 1, 2017, I listened to that nudge. I took a break from booze (for Dry January) and ended up extending that break to three months. Three months turned to six, six to nine, nine to an entire year.

Do you know what happened in that first year? Suddenly all of those health, wellness, and spirituality practices I was spinning my wheels with clicked into place. Not only that, they rocketed me forward as if I’d been in an arrow in a bow where the tension simply needed to be released.

The tension - the thing that was holding me back - I learned, was my casual drinking habit. Yep, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, alcohol was the simple habit that was keeping me stuck, unhappy, unfulfilled, overwhelmed, stressed, and frustrated (among other less-favorable feelings).

Here are three specific ways quitting drinking has accelerated the trajectory of my career.

Enhanced Clarity

It’s difficult to have clarity when your mind is in a fog from drinking. 

It’s also impossible to see how hazy things are if you’ve become used to operating in a fog. 

For years, I struggled with a feeling that I wanted to make a change in my life and career, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that change looked like. This is because I lacked the ability to tap into big vision level clarity.

Once alcohol was out of the way, I regained my ability to tap into my visionary side. Once I was tapped in, I was able to envision precisely what it was I desired to do - at least as a next step.

Clarity is queen and if you’re drinking at a consistent, if even moderate, rate - you’re not fully tapped in.

Increased Confidence

Once I gained clarity on my dreams and desires, the next step was building up the confidence I needed to pursue those dreams. 

Although I was always able to muster up outward confidence, my internal sense of worth was relatively low. This is why I was constantly looking to alcohol to escape from my problems…I didn’t believe I had what it took to manage the intense emotions created by the circumstances my life was throwing at me.

With alcohol out of the picture, I had to learn how to be present in uncomfortable situations without the crutch alcohol had provided. With every new situation I showed up for, I gained a sense of empowerment that simply hadn’t been available to me before.

Suddenly, imposter syndrome was a thing of the past. Without alcohol as my personal cheat-code, I was showing up fully, vulnerably, and authentically. Damn. That felt powerful.

Confidence comes from showing up from life fully, not from faking it until you make it. There is no faster path to confidence than removing alcohol as your emotional crutch and social lubricant and choosing to show up for life in your own power.

Expanded Time

I used to think the negative effects of a night out on the town were limited to the symptoms of a weekend hangover. Which - if I’m being honest - often lingered and transformed into low level anxiety and fogginess for a few days after. In fact, no matter how little I drank, these symptoms seemed to persist, always leaving me in a slight trance. 

This hardly accounts for the amount of time I wasted (sometimes literally) in my relationship with alcohol.

If you added up all of the hours you spent drinking, thinking about drinking, and recovering from drinking, you’d have a humbling number that represented how many hours are wasted each week.

That number is valuable time you could be spending showing up for your life, your loved ones, and - most importantly - your dreams.

With alcohol out of the way, time will expand in your favor. You’ll find you have not only more hours, but more energy to spend during those hours. You’ll become unstoppable.

Let’s be clear. I’m not talking about having more time to hustle harder. No, I’m talking about creating an expansive life where you have the time, energy, and space to create a life you no longer want to escape from.

The results

Having more clarity, confidence, and time was a game changer that I’d never expected when I experimented with removing alcohol from my life. Let’s talk about the tangible results that I experienced over the past seven years:

• I immediately had lower stress levels and increased competence to deal with stress. This was greatly due to all of the personal development tools I was amassing that helped me practice emotional regulation (a skill I was, frankly, incapable of as a drinker). There’s science that proves your overall emotional resilience decreases when you drink alcohol, by the way.

• My performance and productivity skyrocketed. Suddenly, tasks that would drag out were simple and less stressful to complete. I was able to get more done in less time. This felt incredible.

• I became a creative genius. I’ve always been creative, but I had no idea how much alcohol use was blocking my creativity (yes, even on the many days when I was not drinking). Once alcohol was gone, my mind was on fire with ideas and I had the creative capacity to actually bring them to life.

• My co-workers took notice. Although I was always high-performing, I was bringing a new edge to my work as a non-drinker. My supervisors and colleagues noticed the change. I received a massive (biggest-of-my-life) raise that created a new level of security in my life.

• I had a competitive edge that couldn’t be matched. While my colleagues and contemporaries were drowning their sorrows at the end of the day/week and attending boozy networking events, I was clear-headed and working on myself. Although I feared that going alcohol-free might create a disconnect, it actually made me a stand-out player. In other words, I was capable of doing things my contemporaries couldn’t do because I was making life decisions they weren’t bold enough to make.

Within a relatively short time after removing alcohol from my life, I’d gotten clear that the corporate job was no longer the path for me. For me, the path that made the most sense was to transition into entrepreneurship and blaze a path for myself.

Surprisingly, I became a leader of the elective sobriety movement and now work with powerful women who want to pursue an alcohol-free lifestyle as a part of living their full potential. I even wrote a bestselling book on the topic, Unbottled Potential: Break Up With Alcohol And Break Through To Your Best Life (which I published with top publishing house, Penguin Random House - a lifetime dream I was able to bring to life on an unprecedented time frame due to all of the factors I’ve shared above).

Sometimes, my clients are also called to shift their career trajectory as a part of their alcohol-free journey. Just as often, they are able to take back control of a hectic corporate career, allowing them to set boundaries and blaze new trails in a way that feels suited to their needs and magic.

I’ve worked with powerful women who are attorneys, doctors, therapists, entrepreneurs, celebrities, teachers, high-performing sales reps, and C-Suite executives who have all had the same results: Once they commit to ditching alcohol and showing up fully for themselves, they are able to miraculously and powerfully shift and accelerate the trajectory of their careers (and lives).

The transformation I experienced in my own life was so powerful and miraculous that I’ve made it my mission to share what I know with any amazing woman who is called to listen. If that sounds like you, I’m glad you’re here. This work isn’t just about abstaining from alcohol, it’s about creating the space you need to do the inner work that will take your life to the next level. This is simple, powerful work…but it’s certainly not easy. And yet, I believe that if you’ve read this far that you’re here for a reason. 

If you feel even the slightest bit curious about how changing your relationship with alcohol could shift the trajectory of your life, this is your permission slip to explore that calling. I’ve shared a few ways I can help below this post, but if this post spoke to you, you can always reach out to me directly by emailing hello at amandakuda dot com - I’d love to hear from you and learn about your story.