December 29, 2025
I am still hungover.
Waking up hungover in Vegas feels as natural as showgirls or $30 cocktails, but it is deeply unwelcome in this hotel room, especially since I stopped drinking two nights ago. Yes, I am experiencing a two-day hangover.
The four-hour drive home is spent slowly sipping Sprite and repeating to my husband how excited I am to participate in Dry January. Unfortunately, Dry January is not something I am doing in solidarity with a friend or to train for a half marathon. Instead, it feels like an unsexy, cold building I am dropping myself off at, bags in hand, doors closing behind me. No one is forcing me. This is not a preemptive strike. I am here because I simply cannot do this anymore.
Just when the nausea feels like it might force us to pull over on the side of the 15, I remember the trusty joint in my purse. It might as well be in a glass case labeled “break in case of emergency.” I close my eyes, thank all three of my higher powers, and spark it up. After the first drag, I remind myself I can do all things through the emotional support jay which strengthens me.
January 3, 2026
Three days into Dry January, I caved.
It was not an unforgettable party. It was an arcade with poor AC and $3 Bud Lights. While my bar tab totaled $6, I spent the rest of the night actively trying not to shame-spiral.
This is not my first Dry January. I have dipped my toe into the abstinence pond plenty of times. Breaks from alcohol, refined sugar, flower, vapes, gummies, bong rips before 5 pm. If it brings joy, my subconscious has eventually suggested we “reevaluate.”
It feels early to learn this lesson, but it is an important one: how do you bounce back from a fuck-up?
I have absolutely thrown in the towel before. Life does not exist in a vacuum. Shit happens, and decisions made while hating myself rarely end well. Anyone who would call out “that one night I had two beers” is just an asshole. I have never done anything perfectly in my life, so why would I start now?
So with my ass on the couch and my bong in hand, I consult absolutely no one and decide we start again tomorrow.
January 11, 2026
I feel amazing!!!!!
It has been a solid week since my last drink, and I am starting to imagine what life could look like without alcohol. Vodka sodas with lime have been replaced with Sprite loaded with 3 to 5 mg of THC.
I go to bars and birthday dinners armed with a tiny pouch I can pour into any drink. If I am feeling especially unhinged, it goes into a Red Bull. Girlfriends ask for sips all night and say the same thing: “holy shit, that’s good.”
They are right. This is good.
January 18, 2026
I am so fucking bored.
I have played video games, board games, picked up new books. Nothing works. Sitting on a patio with a drink is the perfect hobby for people who love doing nothing, and I would give anything for that. The novelty of mocktails has worn off, and I am resentful that I am paying $12 for juice and a sprig of rosemary.
The weed is not helping either. If anything, it is making me more bored.
I have nothing insightful to say today. Maybe I need to learn how to be bored. But damn, do I miss a patio. Or maybe I just miss not putting myself in timeout for no reason.
January 25, 2026
I have returned to the scene of the crime.
At 4:54 pm, my Southwest flight lands me back in Sin City. Armed with more gummies and infused pouches than any one girl needs, I am ready to face the final week of Dry January in the place that inspired this experiment.
Vegas is a weird place. It is an even weirder place sober.
I am worried the weed will not be enough. With more sober days behind me than ahead of me, I take another gummy. I know I will need it.
January 30, 2026
I did it.
One day left. I made it through Vegas with a steady stream of THC in my veins. As I pick up gummy wrappers and crack the window to air out the room, I find myself wondering if weed is the problem.
Have I abstained from alcohol for 31 days? Yes.
Have I been consistently high for those same 31 days? Also yes.
Before I slide back into the shame spiral I was in a month ago, I stop myself.
Weed does not equal vodka sodas that launched me onto dance floors. It also does not equal hugging a toilet in a hotel bathroom. Weed will never replace alcohol, but it will also never hurt me like that.
It will never make me lose all my inhibitions and skinny dip in the ocean. If anything, it makes me deeply aware that I am about to skinny dip in the ocean.
And that is why I like it.
I love a beer on a patio. I love a joint on a porch. I am not going to abstain from alcohol forever and I will never abstain from cannabis forever, but I am done hating myself for choosing what makes me feel good.
