You're travelling home after a festival. You're sticky. Probably from the beer and drinks that were poured over you over the weekend.
You've lost count of the number of drinks you had. You ate one meal a day if you were lucky. You slept about 3 hours over the course of 3 days. 5 days later you still feel the same as the come down / hangover / lack of food / lack of sleep is still casting its shadows over.
Sound familiar?
I made the decision to stop drinking alcohol — not just at festivals, but in life. And I replaced it with something that brought me just as much joy in social settings: chai lattes.
It wasn't about restriction. It was about choosing how I wanted to feel. Choosing clarity over fog. Choosing presence over numbness. Choosing to wake up the next morning and actually remember the conversations, the laughter, the connections.
The surprising thing? Nothing was lost. The festivals are still fun. The conversations are still deep. The dancing is still wild. If anything, everything became more vivid, more real, more mine.