I recently took a break from drinking after coming home from an exceptionally boozy Vegas trip. My body just felt sanitized of its necessary vitamins, minerals, and fluids. I decided to take a weekend off. And then a week. And now a month.

I’m a quiet girl normally. The kind of girl who benefits in a lot of ways from the crutch of alcohol. I spring to life when you pour a drink in me: The clutches inside me finally relax. The words in my mind blossom from their tightly closed buds, for better or worse. I laugh freely and easily. I forget that anything in life is really worth all the fuss. I like myself more.

Of course, it’s easier for other people to love you when you love yourself, which is why so many of my friends associate me with drinking. I get forwarded all the alcohol memes on Instagram, receive wine glasses and bottles as gifts, and am invited to drinking dates if I’m not initiating my own. I enjoy it — being the harbinger of prosecco, the “bitch please”-er of the evening, and the one who’s up for anything. I try new things, take dares, and I am infinitely more artsy.

There are two alcohol related quotes that resonate strongly with me: “Write drunk, edit sober,” which is dubiously attributed to Hemingway (still, can I get a wut wut); and, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy,” linked most famously to a 1970’s Tom Waits interview. I am more loose with my thinking after a glass of wine. It seems to unlatch my creativity from its cage. I’m also more in love with life, and people. I see through an American Beauty-style filter, and can pick out moments and images with more focus and less internal justification. My production of superficial pleasures goes way up.

I need it, really. I exercise regularly, have creative outlets, and plenty of people to talk to. But nothing unplugs and resets me like a good night out with booze and friends.

So I was surprised when, after three weeks without the sauce, I could still find ways to be alive in social situations — a little sparkling water in a wine glass has been the placebo I didn’t know I needed. Tiny bubbles have almost the same effect on my body and mind, but instead of feeling drunk on alcohol, I let the company of smart and funny friends lull me into humor and lightness. Talking to strangers is just as easy and delightful. Sunsets are still as beautiful. Food is still as good.

But my creativity, though still accessible, feels a little forced. My sense of adventure is slightly stalled. The stiffness in my ribcage is still spindly and terse, and not as easily convinced that I’ve found the panacea. And I haven’t been brave enough to try karaoke sober, despite that it’s one of my favorite pastimes.

So I will definitely drink again, though it’s been a refreshing surprise to know that I don’t need it to enjoy life, or even myself. It’s like I’ve been wearing a huge overcoat to protect me from a hurricane, when there’s just a gentle breeze blowing.

Perhaps life feels stormier when you are trying so hard to hide from the weather.