Wanting to be more focused today to remember it tomorrow.
“I don’t totally love the way I do it.” — Anne Hathaway
In April of 2019, Anne Hathaway announced to the world that she had made a decision that was based on just understanding who she was and what she wanted out of life.
That decision simply was to stop drinking for 18 years.
Why such a specific time frame?
Well, it would be pretty easy to surmise that 18 years is typically the time frame from birth to when one can be considered an adult, so to think it has something to do with raising a child would not be a bad guess.
This, of course, would be correct, as Anne decided this would be the time frame in which she would completely abstain from drinking to ensure that she would be a better parent to her son, Jonathan.
How so, one might ask?
Anne is pretty open about the reasons, as she has discussed it in various interviews over the past few years.
SHE ENJOYED ALCOHOL TOO MUCH
Anne has been pretty clear that alcohol was something that she enjoyed immensely when she partook. She recounted various stories of having partied with her other Hollywood friends and said that when she drank, she went all in.
“My issue is I just love it,” she shared in a Tatler magazine interview back in 2019. So. Much.”
For her, when she drinks, there is no sense of moderation. She just goes all-in and feels that is just how she is wired.
“I will never be that person who can nurse a glass of wine through an entire evening,” she added.
She even went as far as to joke that had she not been an actress, there is a good chance that she would have succumbed to the liquid endorphin creator already.
“I could have seen myself being a teacher,” she said. “Or going into the military. Or being some kind of do-gooder with a death wish. But more likely than anything else I would have been an alcoholic.”
While this was all said in jest, it is interesting that she is keenly aware of her own natural propensity to drink in large quantities and not have the ability for restraint.
SHE WANTED TO TRULY BE THERE FOR HER SON
Couple this previous realization that she goes all in when she drinks with the after-effects of such decisions, i.e., raging hangovers, and Anne decided that drinking was not going to help her be a better parent to her son.
She came to this conclusion on a particular day that she had to drop him off at daycare and the headache from the previous night’s activities was so unbearable, she recognized that it was truly affecting her ability to be present and her best self as a mother.
“I did one school run one day where I dropped him off at school, I wasn’t driving, but I was hungover and that was enough for me. I didn’t love that one.”
She’s very clear that the reason she stopped drinking isn’t something that is moralistic or even an admission that she has any type of problem.
She, however, relates it directly to how much worse her hangovers have gotten over time and how this impacts her ability to be there for her son at all times in the manner that she desires.
“The time I have with (Jonathan) is really precious. And I do leave a lot for work and I found my time with was getting impacted, not necessary by the drinking, as I never went out of control around him. But I hate to say it — as you get older, the hangovers get really bad.”
She even recounted that during one of her last times drinking, she had a five-day hangover that was especially troubling. It was so bad that she didn’t remember much of the day and had a hard time functioning the next day in a meeting with a producer.
This, of course, couldn’t have helped her patience as a mother with Jonathan in the days following either.
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ANNE’S DECISION
The great thing about Anne’s decision is that she didn’t quit because she felt that she was becoming a bad person or that alcohol was bad in itself. She quit because she just decided that it didn’t allow her to be the best version of herself for her son.
It has always been my belief that there are a number of people (I put myself in this category) who fall into the same bucket.
Alcohol is not destroying our lives, but it just isn’t allowing us to live it in a manner to be the best version of a parent/spouse/sibling, etc that we could be.
It could be something to consider.
While your life could be fine with alcohol, the question could be how much better could it be without it?