Clarity Vibes

Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, nor am I endorsing the use of GLP-1 medications. If you’re interested in learning more about them, please consult your healthcare provider. I am simply sharing my personal experience as it relates to today’s story and am not offering medical advice.

Content Note: This post includes discussion of alcohol and substance use.

Back in March of this year, I started taking tirzepatide as part of my weight-loss journey. One unexpected side effect was that alcohol quickly lost its appeal. Even a few sips would leave me feeling nauseous and unwell. As a result, I found myself abstaining entirely from alcohol from March through mid-June.

Truthfully, it wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

I’ve had my fun. I went pretty hard in my younger years, and I’m fairly certain my liver appreciates the break.

What has been interesting, however, is experiencing social situations from an entirely different vantage point: being sober.

Recently, I attended a birthday party and found myself looking around the room with fresh eyes. Mind you, I’m 40 years old. Perhaps it’s where I live, an affluent community where people often marry later, have children later, and maintain a certain lifestyle well into middle age, but I’ve noticed what feels like a prolonged adolescence. Not necessarily in appearance. With Botox, peptides, cosmetic procedures, and modern medicine, many of us look younger than our parents did at this age.

But maturity isn’t about appearance.

It’s about values.

It’s about priorities.

It’s about how you choose to spend your time and energy.

As the evening wore on, I found myself asking a question I never would have asked ten years ago:

“What are we doing here?”

Not in a judgmental way. More in a curious way.

Because what once felt exciting now feels exhausting.

I’ve realized that I can only tolerate a few hours around heavily intoxicated people before I’m ready to go home. People get louder. Conversations become repetitive. Small problems become dramatic crises. Emotions become amplified. The entire atmosphere begins to feel chaotic rather than enjoyable.

And suddenly I remembered all those nights from my twenties—the women crying in nightclub bathrooms, mascara running down their faces after a fight with a boyfriend. Friends abandoning one another at bars. The endless dramas that seemed so significant at the time.

Again, I don’t say this from a place of judgment.

I think in order to become old and wise, one must first be young and a little foolish.

Most of us learn through experience.

Most of us have seasons of life that, looking back, make us shake our heads and laugh. Or cringe.

But growth has a funny way of changing what feels aligned.

The older I get, the more I value feeling good.

I like waking up without a hangover.

I like having a clear mind.

I like feeling calm, grounded, and emotionally regulated.

I like getting tucked into bed by 9:00 p.m. with a true crime documentary or a murder mystery novel.

I like waking up early enough to make it to the gym before work.

I like not feeling inflamed.

I like remembering the things I do and say.

And perhaps that’s what this realization is really about.

Not alcohol.

Not parties.

Not even aging.

It’s about recognizing when you’ve evolved.

Sometimes we assume friendships are meant to last forever simply because they’ve lasted a long time. We stay connected through habit, history, proximity, or nostalgia. But people change. Priorities change. Values change.

The person you are today may not be interested in the same things that interested you two years ago, ten years ago, or twenty years ago.

That doesn’t make anyone wrong.

It doesn’t make one path better than another.

It simply means that growth can create new desires, new interests, and new ways of living.

And occasionally, growth requires us to ask whether the people around us still align with who we’re becoming.

Not because we’ve outgrown them as people.

But because we’ve outgrown a version of ourselves.

Perhaps maturation isn’t about becoming more serious. Perhaps it’s about becoming more intentional.

About choosing what energizes you instead of what depletes you.

About creating a life that reflects who you are now rather than who you used to be.

And maybe that’s one of the quiet invitations of middle age:

To release the ways of our youth with gratitude, while making room for the person we’re still becoming.

While alcohol happens to be the focus of this story because it is the substance I was personally abstaining from, the broader realization extends beyond alcohol itself. Over the years, both personally and professionally, I have witnessed the impact that prolonged substance use can have on people’s physical health, emotional well-being, relationships, careers, and sense of self.

Whether the substance is socially accepted or socially stigmatized, there often comes a point where we are each invited to ask an honest question: Is this adding to my life, or is it taking something away from it?

This is also not to say that I’ll never again enjoy a craft cocktail or take another trip to Napa. I’ve simply come to appreciate that moderation, boundaries, and mindfulness tend to age far better than excess.

Wishing you clarity and good company,
LC

“Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.”
— Traditional proverb

An Afterthought

I wish I could call up Little Me and tell her that, despite all the twists and turns, things do get much better for her eventually.

There are definitely a few people she’ll meet along the way whom she should avoid at all costs—but she won’t. And somehow, we survive those lessons too.

We make it through with a lot of help from our friends, but every so often, we have to take an honest look at those relationships and ask whether they’re still serving our highest good. Not every connection is meant to last forever, and some people who once lifted us up can eventually weigh us down.

Over time, we learn to choose our company more carefully. We begin to seek out people who inspire us, support us, challenge us in healthy ways, and make life a little brighter simply by being in it.

She’ll make plenty of mistakes, but she usually learns from them. Most importantly, she will be thankful she never gave up, even when she wanted to. In the end, it turns out to be a very good life.

Not a perfect life, but a meaningful one. One where she grows up and helps other kids heal from the things that hurt them. One where she becomes the trusted adult in their lives that she needed in her own, but didn’t always have.

She learns that pain can be transformed into purpose, and that the very experiences that once wounded her can become the source of her greatest compassion. It isn’t the life she would have imagined for herself as a child.

It’s way better.