Tag: drinking
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Happy ramblings
I’ve been quiet recently. It seems that the inspiration to write drains as my life gets bigger and happier. You’d think that creativity stemmed from excitement, but I guess it evolves from sadness. It is hard to write when I’m not sad. I am now nine months sober and completely in love with it. Sobriety…
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I hated Sundays
It is 7am on a Sunday and I am getting ready to run a half marathon. I am currently marathon training, something I never would have been able to do as a drinker. Not only did I weigh 20kg/44lbs more, but I felt sluggish and sapped of energy most of the time. If I was…
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Sober New Year
My New year’s Eve for the last 11 years. Spot the difference. 2011: The clock struck midnight, I had a massive drunken fight with my boyfriend of the time, punched a hole through a canvas painting I’d just given him for Christmas and then cried the whole way home. 2012: Got exceptionally drunk, had a…
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Dating sober
I thought I’d share some sober dating stories from the dreaded “telling them you don’t drink” perspective… To give context, I finally exited from my long-term, unhealthy relationship in September this year. I started dating after a couple of months. This is the first time I’ve ever dated, having been a serial monogamist for most…
Soberfying
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Christmas sip ups
My lovely mum, supportive of my alcohol free lifestyle, bought me a “non alcoholic” Elderflower drink to have during our Christmas lunch. I took one sip and immediately felt suspicious. I checked the can…4%. I’d only taken one sip but felt a shower of guilt. She was obviously very apologetic and hadn’t realised it had…
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I feel untethered
I’m feeling untethered. I can see myself standing on the ground, and yet I’m floating around like an astronaut. I feel myself getting further and further from the floor, feeling more unsteady and nauseous each day. This is the most unsettled I’ve felt since I quit drinking. I’ve have that anxious butterfly tummy and a…
Soberfying
alcohol, alcoholfree, anxiety, booze, clean, drink, drinking, drugs, health, mental health, sober, soberfying, struggle, teetotal, wellbeing -
Dating without drink
I’ve been contemplating dating again. It will be first time I’ve dated sober. In the past, a standard date was a drink in the pub, usually followed up with drunken sex and a morning after of half remembered embarrassment. I’ve slept with people I don’t like, whose names I don’t know, and who don’t deserve…
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Falling off the sober high
Having a wobble today. And whilst I don’t feel like I’m at risk of drinking, I feel totally on edge. It has been 4 weeks since my break up with my ex-partner. I was told yesterday that he’s already starting sleeping with someone else. I desperately want not to care. I’ve coped so well with…
Soberfying
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Counting sober days
When I started this sobriety journey, I was counting the days. Counting the days since my last drink. I used an app called I am Sober and I would check it every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Pledging in the morning, reviewing in the evening and just making sure those numbers were correct every…
Soberfying
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Drunk symptoms
There’s nothing quite like spending the evening with a bunch of drunks to reaffirm your sobriety. Tonight I spent the evening with my good friend, and his two friends. All three were fairly drunk by the time I arrived, nosecco in hand. In the few hours I was there I heard the same stories on…
Soberfying
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Bank holiday boozing
Bank holiday weekends (state holidays for the Americans among us) are a trigger for me. Bank holiday weekends comprise of the promise of an extra day off work, which historically meant an extra day of recovery from an extra brutal hangover. It meant two or even three nights of heavy drinking, with the Monday off…
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The point at which I lost control of alcohol
Allen Carr, the bestselling author of ‘The Easy Way to Control Alcohol’, asks “when did you first lose control of alcohol?” I think back to when I first started drinking at the age of 14. I’d steal vodka from my mum’s alcohol collection. At my friend Scott’s house, beers from the kitchen cupboard. At school,…
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100 days sober
100 days ago, I woke up in a semi-hungover state, tired, grouchy, with a light spattering of memory loss from the night before and some embarrassment from passing out on the sofa (whilst playing mario kart of all things). This was not the “hangover from hell”. This was not a “I feel like I’m gonna…
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Sober festivals
I am a lover of festivals. I have loved the crazy production of Boomtown, the grotty field living at Nass, the big names at Reading, the airfield at Let It Roll, the atmosphere at Rampage and so on. I’ve been going to festivals every year since I was 16 years old. And every festival has…
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Ten things I have lost because of alcohol
Ten things I have lost because of alcohol – 1. My phone. I’ve lost two phones to alcohol. The first time I was in Spain at a 7 day festival and lost it on day 3. I then spent the rest of the week unable to contact anyone from home, unable to access my boarding…
Soberfying
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Pride 🏳️🌈
Today I celebrate 12 weeks sober, in addition to the fabulous celebrations all around the city for Pride weekend. I’ve attended a few Prides now, each one just as messy as the others. Traditionally, we started drinking around 11am when the parade first makes its way through the rainbow donned streets. Pride 2019, I was…
Soberfying
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Alcohol breaks, sobriety fixes
It was obvious from the first day I drank that I would have a problematic relationship with alcohol in later life. I remember clearly, age 13 or 14, finding a bottle of Tesco own vodka hidden in the kitchen. I was fascinated with this bottle, the secrecy of it and the rebelliousness of knowing I…
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Football, feminism and Great British booze culture
Last night it came home! England won their first major trophy since 1966. Serena’s Women’s team sold out Wembley Stadium, in a record for the Euros. This is a major achievement, in football, but larger than that, for women and girls around the world. I also observed something different in the drinking culture. I watched…
Soberfying
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Celebrating the final drink
Admitting I have a problem with drinking was the catalyst I needed to stop. At New Year, I made my annual resolution to cut down alcohol (I’ve been making the same new year’s resolution for ten years). This year, it appeared successful. I only drank on weekends, and mostly only once a week. This was…
Soberfying
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Running away from alcohol
“But isn’t it all the exercise that’s making you so health, not the not drinking?” – a friend. I have developed a thirst for exercise. When I haven’t run for a few days I can feel it bubble up inside. I crave exercise. It is very common for alco-quitters, to swap to other habits. Eating…
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Holidays and sobering thoughts
Holidays sober. A foreign thought. Holidays are the epitome of drinking. Pint in the airport, miniatures on the plane, cocktails on the beach, wine by the pool, boozing through the day, continuing through the night, waking to the hair of the dog and carrying on for 7 days and nights until you need a holiday…
Soberfying
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Last night’s nightmare
This morning I woke up in dread, feeling like I had a hangover and scolding myself with shame. It took a few minutes to realise I had just woken up from a bad dream, a bad dream in which I had drunk. In the nightmare, I had just woken up from a party and knew…
Soberfying
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The nothingness phase
I am not going to write a fake post about how hard I am finding this. Even though I know that stories of struggle attract more readers. When I asked a sober-curious friend about books about soberfying, she actually said, “I just enjoy reading other peoples dreadful booze stories and how they got sober”. And…
Soberfying
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If I had drunk
So this last week has been hard. The desire to drink has been strong, the booze gremlin residing in my head has been chattering away louder than usual. However, I am pleased to be able to write that I have not drunk. And sitting here on this absolutely stunning, summer’s day, I’m thinking about how…
Soberfying
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Struggling
The last four days have gone so slowly. I feel like I’m trekking through sludge, made up on congealed wine and stale beer. Treading the sticky substance to get through the other side. My determination to keep going is the only reason I haven’t given in. Probably also my stubbornness and my “be perfect” driver,…
Soberfying
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Hold onto the Sunday mornings
I wrote yesterday about how I am struggling with the sobriety. Although, it isn’t the sobriety I’m struggling with…that is amazing. The new energy, the better sleep, better skin, being fitter and stronger and less anxiety. No, not the sobriety I’m struggling with. Its the remaining sober. It’s the debating against that wicked voice in…
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So close the big 5 oh
Struggling today. Struggling to remember why I’m doing this; struggling to write; can’t find the motivation to do much at all really. A big milestone tomorrow. 50 days sober. Focussing on how massive an achievement that is and continuing to take each week at a time. Remembering a drink today will steal the success of…
Soberfying
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Cheers to that first day of my life
According to our beloved NHS, addiction is defined as not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you. You could be misusing alcohol if: You feel you should cut down on your drinking – check Other people have been criticising your drinking – since the…
Soberfying 