NFA Finance

For most of my adult life, drinking wasn’t just something I did.

It was part of who I thought I was.

I wasn’t the guy drinking cheap beer until two in the morning.

I wasn’t getting DUIs.

I wasn’t missing work.

I wasn’t what most people would consider a drunk.

I was the bourbon guy.

The whiskey guy.

The guy with the collection.

The guy who always knew what bottle to order.

The guy who could talk about bourbon for hours.

I genuinely loved it.

It wasn’t something I was trying to escape from.

It was something I enjoyed.

For years, I thought that was just who I was.

Then one day I started asking myself a different question.

What if it wasn’t?

What if this thing I thought was part of my identity was actually holding me back from becoming the person I wanted to be?

The funny thing is, drinking wasn’t destroying my life.

In some ways, that made it harder.

If drinking had caused some giant disaster, the decision would have been easy.

Instead, it was woven into everything.

Business dinners.

Celebrations.

Vacations.

Friends.

Collecting.

Stories.

Life.

The problem wasn’t that alcohol was ruining my life.

The problem was that it was quietly taking up space in it.

Space in my mind.

Space in my habits.

Space in my routine.

Space in my future.

When I finally quit, something unexpected happened.

I didn’t lose part of my identity.

I found a bigger one.

The energy got better.

The focus got better.

The mornings got better.

The workouts got better.

My thinking got clearer.

I started building instead of recovering.

Creating instead of consuming.

Looking back now, I don’t feel like I gave something up.

I feel like I got something back.

Time.

Clarity.

Health.

Purpose.

Momentum.

And maybe most importantly, proof that I wasn’t who I thought I was.

Because that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life.

A lot of us spend years carrying around identities we built when we were younger.

The car guy.

The party guy.

The tough guy.

The successful guy.

The funny guy.

The bourbon guy.

Eventually, if you’re lucky, you realize you’re allowed to outgrow old versions of yourself.

That’s what happened to me.

I didn’t quit drinking because I hated alcohol.

I quit drinking because I wanted to see who I could become without it.

And looking back, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

— Nick Francis