3 reasons I used to drink that were all related to my internalized autism

Today is exactly 1 year since I stopped drinking alcohol. Which is pretty huge. So in honor of this milestone...

I'm going to share the 3 reasons I used to drink as an autistic person...

The reason I chose to stop...

And why I'll never drink again.

Here goes...

1. The main reason I used to drink was to quiet my mind.

As an autistic person, my brain feels like it's constantly "on." Alcohol would slow it down, and I would get a break from my own thoughts.

(The brain feeling like it's always "on" is a common autistic experience)

2. To dull my senses.

I have extremely intense sensory sensitivities and alcohol would make them feel more tolerable.

3. To feel more comfortable and less anxious at social events.

Especially ones with a lot of people. Especially if I knew almost no one there.

Now here's the reason I chose to stop drinking...

I realized that I wasn't enjoying the experience of drinking anymore.

This wasn't always the case. When I started drinking in my 20s, I did enjoy it... but the last year I was drinking, 90% of my experience was pretty awful actually.

Mainly because from the moment I took my first drink, my mind would immediately fixate on how I could get my next one.

Because I knew it was only a matter of time before the feelings of quiet and dulled senses wore off. And all I could think about was making sure they didn't.

And then there was the in between drinking times.

I had pretty strict rules for myself when it came to drinking. Never during the day, which meant before 5... and never if I knew I needed to drive.

So during those in between times, my brain was constantly thinking about when I'd be able to have my next drink and "relax" again. Some people call this alcohol noise. And towards the end of my drinking, the noise was constant.

So by the end, there was truly no enjoyment in it for me anymore. Not even a little bit.

Which is why I will never drink again. Because the noise, the mental fixation, was actually much worse than the 3 problems I was trying to solve with it.

I sincerely hope this helps some of you.

This is an important topic, especially in the space of neurodivergence and autism awareness, because there's a significant correlation between neurodivergence and alcohol use as a coping mechanism.