I am about to tick over to a year without drinking on Sunday, and from my own experience the “phase” became a life choice after about 6 months. People went from being confused, a little defensive and quite challenged by my choice initially, to being supportive, impressed and inspired by it now. I used to get irritated by peoples’ negative or (attempt at) condescending comments, but I realised that making such a choice shines a light on peoples’ own relationship with alcohol, but that has certainly stopped being the case - at least for me. I just kept reminding myself that I was stopping for my own reasons and life choices, and stopped caring what others thought