September 23, 2018. I must have looked at the clock fifty-seven times before I was finally off work for the day. I couldn’t wait for a drink. The day had been typical: work, a drink, then home. I went to a local restaurant and ordered my usual — a margarita on the rocks, of course. I took a sip of the ice-cold drink and felt the familiar burn, but this time it tasted more like poison than comfort. Each swallow felt like “glass wrapped in honey,” sweet then jagged, leaving a warmth that swallowed me whole like a hug I did not ask for. But instead of comfort, my head started spinning. My thoughts began to race: I cannot do this anymore. This cannot be my everyday. The rushing, the burning, the silent hope that I would make it home safely — none of it felt normal anymore. In that moment, the thought of sobriety danced in my mind. I tried to convince myself otherwise, but I already knew what I needed to do.
I pushed the watered-down glass to the side before standing up and walking away. That was my last drink. No shattered glass, no slammed doors, no drama. Just a quiet decision made in the middle of a restaurant. The generational curse ends here; it ends with me.
My decision that day did not happen in a vacuum. Research shows that alcohol dependence often runs in families, shaped by both genetics and environment. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), “genetics account for about half of a person’s risk of developing an alcohol use disorder” (“Genetics of Alcohol Use Disorder”). That means I wasn’t just fighting my own habits — I was fighting history. The rest of the risk comes from environmental factors such as stress, family drinking patterns, and normalized alcohol use. Growing up around alcohol made drinking feel ordinary, expected, even comforting. I didn’t realize how deeply routine it had become until the day it finally tasted wrong.
Long-term alcohol use also changes the brain, which helps explain why stopping felt like stepping out of a fog. Researchers at Harvard Medical School note that alcohol can “rewire reward pathways” and weaken the brain’s natural ability to regulate stress and emotion (“Alcohol’s Effects on the Brain”). When I think back on that final margarita — the burning sweetness, the sudden dizziness — I realize my body was signaling what my mind had ignored for years. I wasn’t just tired; I was chemically worn down.
Pushing that glass away was simple, but the meaning behind it was enormous. I was rejecting not only a drink, but the narrative I had inherited — one where alcohol softened every edge and filled every silence. Studies show that breaking cycles of substance dependence often requires what psychologists call a “critical shift moment,” a point when the consequences finally outweigh the perceived comfort (Smith 112). That moment for me was not dramatic but deeply internal: a sudden clarity that I did not want alcohol to write any more chapters of my life.
Understanding the research behind addiction gives me a new perspective on my choice. I am not weak for having struggled. I am not dramatic for calling it a curse. I am a person who inherited risk factors, lived in an environment that normalized drinking, and then — on an ordinary September afternoon — interrupted the pattern. My quiet decision is part of a larger truth: cycles don’t break themselves. Someone has to stop and see clearly.
That day, I did.
I am done drinking.
Works Cited
“Alcohol’s Effects on the Brain.” Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School,
https://www.health.harvard.edu.
“Genetics of Alcohol Use Disorder.” National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA),
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov.
Smith, Jonathan. Understanding Breakthrough Moments in Addiction Recovery. Oxford University Press, 2019
Brittney Marlow is a student at Houston City College majoring in Psychology.