This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2025.
Like many, I have a complicated relationship with alcohol. After avoiding it for most of my youth, I fully welcomed its warm embrace when I got to college and over time developed what experts would consider a problem — albeit one that was easy to overlook, since everyone around me was in the same boozy boat.
In adulthood, I’ve found what I consider a happy medium. I drink socially but mostly only on weekends and always in moderation. On the rare occasions I reach for a weeknight beverage, I usually have what feels like a good excuse, such as completing my first run in months or surviving a stressful day at work. Pretty benign, right?
I’d thought so, until an assignment to write about alcohol use in Vermont forced me to reexamine my habits.
The story was straightforward: Vermont drinks a lot, leading to a lot of issues. This wasn’t exactly news to me. What was eye-opening was how skewed my perception of what constitutes “safe” drinking had become.
That’s partly due to the fact that Americans were told for decades that drinking in moderation may be healthy. A growing body of research now casts doubt on that idea, finding that even moderate drinking poses significant health risks, especially as we age.
And yet I also realized that I had never really considered the question of why I was choosing to drink.
How often was I turning to alcohol to quell anxious thoughts or deal with stress? Too often, given that scientists say using booze in such a manner can alter the brain in ways that increase anxiety — something I surely don’t need. And what about falling back on alcohol purely out of boredom? After all, a Friday night spent at home watching movies always feels a bit more celebratory with a couple of beers in the mix.
The more I pondered all this, the more I began to notice how unconscious my drinking habits had become — as if, at some point, I had simply accepted that alcohol was a part of my routine, same as exercising or doing laundry. Determined to confirm that it wasn’t, I decided to give up drinking for about a month. Thankfully I found it relatively easy, though there were times when I grabbed a beer out of the fridge without thinking, only to sheepishly put it back.
None of which is to say that I came away from the experience believing that no one should ever touch alcohol. I still do — regularly, in fact — accepting that the health risks posed by booze are a worthwhile trade-off for a night of laughter and pool with friends.
But I have been trying to think a little more deeply about my decisions involving it, even if that means switching to mocktails every now and then — a choice I have yet to regret in the morning.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Biggest Eye-Opener”
This article appears in Dec 24 2025 – Jan 6 2026.