Yvonne Heath broke up with red wine. Are you ready to lose the booze, too?

The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is challenging everyone to lose the booze this January with its Ready to be Thirsty Challenge, calling on residents to cut out or cut down drinking alcohol this month and encourage friends to do the same.

A year ago, Port Sydney resident Yvonne Heath issued herself her own challenge: give up alcohol for good.

“Red wine and I had to break up because we had quite a relationship,” she laughs. “It was my drink of choice. Like any habit, it was very easy to come home and have a glass of wine. And it’s culturally and socially very accepted and almost encouraged. ‘Let’s meet for a drink.’ Or ‘You’re happy? Let’s celebrate and have a drink!'”

Heath notes that the more she drank, the higher her tolerance got. “I could have a drink or two and then three wouldn’t really bother me. And we can rationalize anything: a bottle of wine is just four drinks.”

So she considered the pros and cons of drinking and found the list of cons was way longer. “Yes, I love the taste of red wine and it made me feel relaxed and all that. But the cons are the cost, you can’t drive or you risk losing your license or hurting someone, your judgement is impaired, you may make decisions you wish you hadn’t, even if you’re trying to be healthy you get the munchies and forget about eating well, and the next day you feel terrible so you’re probably not going to exercise, and you’re probably really crabby with your kids.”

As a nurse, Heath saw the negative effects of alcohol, too. “I’ve seen terrible things with people drinking too much – beating people up, getting into accidents and getting killed or killing people. It causes a lot more damage than we as a society like to acknowledge.”

At one time, our societal acceptance of drinking made Heath not consider going without it.

It had never occurred to me that you could have fun without drinking. I grew up in a town where that’s what you did on Friday night. And then a friend who quit drinking said, ‘I do whatever you do I just don’t drink when I do it.’
Yvonne Heath

Now, she has many reasons for not drinking beyond her initial cons list including being an example for her children that you can have fun without drinking. She also changed careers at 50, authoring the book Love Your Life to Death and starting a movement on living and dying well. She’ll be launching her latest teachings in an audio download From Avoidance to Resilience on January 17.

“I had to give it my all. I have to be present. A big reason people drink is to escape stress and grief because they don’t want to feel it. But that just prolongs the problem because you’re delaying dealing with it. For me it’s an integrity thing and walking my talk. And surprisingly you move through (stress and grief) better.”

It’s been just over a year and Heath hasn’t looked back.

“I exercise every day because I feel good every morning. To never be hung over again, I have to tell people, is amazing. I sleep better, I have more energy, I am more patient. I feel physically so much better, mentally more clear. And I can get home safely any time I go out. There are so many great benefits. And the overwhelming feeling of being so proud of myself for having changed this. I wasn’t an alcoholic but it was a habit for so long, it was just a part of my adulthood.”

If you’re ready to lose the booze too, or accept the health unit’s third annual challenge and give it a try for January, you’ll find tips at howmanydrinks.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/Ready2BThirsty. (If you’re posting your journey on social media, use the hashtag #R2BT.)

Society is in a place right now that encourages alcohol consumption. Brewers and distillers cover the market in advertising that implies the best times are had where there’s booze. Government is relaxing its rules about where alcohol can be purchased. It’s very hard to get a message of moderation out.
Public health nurse Kim Derdall in a media release

In Simcoe and Muskoka, Derdall said, 83 per cent of adults are current alcohol drinkers, and more than a quarter of adults are drinking at a rate that puts their health at increased risk. Since 2012, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse has promoted its national Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines to keep alcohol use at a level that reduces negative impacts on health.

For a fun exercise, try out the quiz below to find out your drinking identity:

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