quit drinking – Chris Rojas, 41, of Tucson, Arizona, says he stopped drinking completely after a hangover on November 15, 2024, using an app and a new daily routine to reclaim his health and show up for his kids.
On November 15, 2024, Chris Rojas woke up with another brutal hangover after a binge. The experience landed differently than the others. He says he finally understood he couldn’t keep punishing his body. and that he was giving away his energy and attention to his kids to a substance he calls “parasitic.”.
Rojas, 41, of Tucson, Arizona, works in food distribution. He turned that wake-up moment into action quickly. He downloaded an app that offered advice on both reducing and eliminating alcohol consumption. He describes it as a “life-changer,” and says he hasn’t touched a drop since then.
Before the choice that stopped the drinking, alcohol had threaded through his life for years. Some friends growing up were into recreational drugs and drinking. but Rojas says he was “big into sports” and stayed away at first. At 18. he got his first job in the restaurant industry. working hard through evenings and then partying when the shift ended. He says his nights often started with the bar scene around 10 pm or moving to someone’s house.
As the routine tightened, he drank heavily—beer, whisky, tequila, gin, vodka, and “anything else” he could get. He also credits alcohol with numbing him. “I used alcohol to soothe myself,” he said.
The drinking wasn’t just a habit; it collided with his body. He was hit by a drunken driver, leaving him with soft tissue damage. He says he couldn’t stand up for more than 30 minutes for about a year. He describes plenty of pain during that period and says he turned again to drinking to cope.
Life outside the bar carried its own strain. Rojas married and divorced within two-and-a-half years. Later, he met his second wife and married in 2013. Their first child arrived not long after. Together, they had three more.
Even when he wasn’t going out, he kept drinking. He says he would drink whisky and beer in his home office after helping his kids with homework and eating dinner. He also described himself as a workaholic with several side projects he was passionate about. staying up late working and drinking every night or every other night.
Alcohol, he says, dominated his thoughts. When supplies ran low, he’d drive to the supermarket to buy 12-packs of beer as soon as the fridge was running out.
By then, he was dealing with the consequences—stress, sleep deprivation, and hangovers that he calls “awful.” He says he was constantly tired from lack of sleep, not as connected to his young kids, and slowed down by the aftermath of drinking.
In 2022, he attempted to reduce his drinking and says he was successful for about 18 months. Then the pressure turned. He says he was demoted twice over the course of six months and earned 45% less than his previous salary. He describes the stress returning and suffering from his prior injury to his back. His solution, he says plainly, was drinking again.
The turning point came with the hangover on November 15, 2024. He describes waking up after a binge and realizing he couldn’t keep punishing his body. He set a new routine: waking up, lifting weights at home, and committing to not drinking.
Stopping alcohol didn’t fix everything at once. Rojas says his second marriage ended and that it was traumatic. But he frames the choice as a way to keep the situation from getting even worse. He says it would have been “10 times worse” if he’d been drinking.
What he says he has regained is time and presence with his children. “I feel so much closer to my children,” he says. He spends “a whole lot more time with them” and is fully present. His kids are young, but he tells them about his past “through a filter.”
He shared one moment that stuck with him: his 11-year-old recently told him she was proud of him. He describes it as “the ultimate praise.”
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