How 3 years of sobriety have changed my life.

This week marks 3 years since I woke up with my last head-splitting hangover, and 2 years since I wrote this article about what I’d learnt during my first sober year. My chest ached and heart pounded for days after I’d posted and outed myself for fear I had ruined my reputation in one swift click (ironic as it was in the gutter during my drinking days!) but it appears I didn’t die when I hit the post button, I’m still employed, have a few friends and more importantly have helped a few others get off the boozy merry-go-round by sharing my experience, so happy days. 

I quipped about people asking me if I was pregnant when I stopped drinking, (the horror, I had so many other plans before thinking about that!) and as I type this one-handed my 5 month old miracle son is sleeping in my lap. Turns out having a baby was one of the side effects of my sobriety! That’s a story for another day however.

I have never been more grateful for my sobriety than in 2020 - for my surprise pregnancy where I was 11 weeks gone when I found out, and the global pandemic that feels like we are all living in the Truman Show. As our politicians continue to disappoint and the world feels more disjointed than ever in the age of the best marketed virus the world has ever seen, I am thankful I put the work in to get and stay sober over the last 3 years. If I was still a drinker when Covid hit I know I would be in a very sorry state by now. Even more scarily I would have gone totally under the radar and not sought the help I needed in the lockdowns and I know my mental health would have spiralled downwards. To me the mental health/addiction crisis will be one of the true costs of the pandemic, I know there will be thousands of Australians feeling helpless right now to addictions that took hold whilst they were busy watching the news and my heart breaks.  

Having a sober brain this year has helped me keep my sanity, or at least recognise when it wanders off and I need to retrieve it with help from my sober toolkit. I deeply feel the collective grief with my friends in Victoria, my family in the UK and friends out of work, yet I have been able to connect with them online with more clarity than I would have if I was still on the booze bus. Having a newborn has also kept me on my toes and although the sleep deprivation is chronic, I’ll take it over a hangover any day.

During my first year of sobriety, for want of a better phrase, I had to learn how to be a real person again. I slowly and painfully learned what my emotions were and had a lot of therapy to uncover the feelings I’d been hiding and not only identify, but sit with them. I learned what triggered me to want to drink, and when to remove myself from situations I wasn’t aligned with. This was an awkward process, that at the time felt so hard I wanted to give up on myself every day, until one day I didn’t. I went through a few different modalities from hypnotherapy to psychology to colon hydrotherapy (!) with a few different counsellors thrown in for good measure. I had the money to throw at this as it turns out alcohol is bloody expensive when you have even a moderate addiction! Personal development became my hobby, until I started to become as obsessed with Pilates and podcasts as I had with Sauvignon Blanc and I couldn’t even walk to the bus stop or chop the veggies without listening to Brené Brown, Annie Grace or Brooke Castillo. I was a bit of a bore. But I was sober. 

Once I became really comfortable in my sobriety at around 18 months, I rarely had the urge to drink anymore. I vividly remember going for a lovely Indian meal in Barangaroo with friends and not feeling anything about them drinking alcohol whilst I had a soda water. I continue to relish in that freedom as it was so hard won. However nagging feelings of inadequacy, loneliness and shame popped up regularly and initially I squashed them down with exercise, work and broccoli, until I connected the dots and started to use those feelings to my advantage to uncover what I wanted from life rather than what I didn’t. I hired a coach and she kicked me into shape and gave me more tools to use in order to keep living within my values. They say ignorance is bliss and I understand why; personal development is difficult, uncomfortable and requires a lot of work. Drinking alcohol and numbing out on the other hand required putting a glass to my lips over and over again until I passed out. Classy. 

The loneliness didn't go away, and I realised I missed socialising but didn't want to do it in the pub anymore, so I started Sober Seekers with a friend, a networking group and community of professional women who want to hang out in a sober safe space. We ran 2 fun workshops at WeWork before Covid and my maternity leave came about, and will be running more in the next few months.

As I started to align my values, I knew I wasn’t living them in all areas and I needed a change of scenery. A career change was terrifying but just what I needed and a year ago I started at the wonderful Beaumont People. The universe had other plans for me but at this point I didn’t know it, so I ignored the tiredness, bloating, headaches and brain-fog and got to work learning how to be a recruiter in a highly successful and beautiful team. When I found out I was pregnant, despite being embarrassed to tell my new manager Kate a mere 6 weeks after I started, I continued to put my efforts into my job and loved being in a place where I could be myself and use my skills to help people find meaningful work. This is a job I wouldn’t have had a chance of even interviewing for 3 years ago. When the pandemic hit and we started working from home, I was 6 months pregnant and grateful for my fit-ball and slippers, but once again had to dip into the toolkit when the lack of social contact with anyone outside of my home became a challenge. 

When I started my 100 day sober challenge back in October 2017, I knew I had to change but didn’t want to and didn’t know how. It was stubbornness and pride that got me through the first 3 months, and after a brief slip back into old habits (I drank on Australia Day, then the day after, and on the third day went to reach for the wine in the fridge and poured it away) I’ve not looked back. I’ve been told I talk too much about my sobriety, I’ve also been told I have helped people cut down or cut out alcohol completely. Several of my friends and colleagues have joined me and celebrated 6, 12 months and more without using alcohol as a crutch. We are unsurprisingly all closer now than when we were drunk together. Before I got sober, I read a lot of sober blogs and with every paragraph I thought I was building myself up to doing the work. I didn’t realise at the time but really, that was the start of the work. If this is something that resonates with you, keep going, dig deep and know you can and will feel better for being free. If you are annoyed by my writing and have continued this far, maybe think about why you’re annoyed, or just stop reading. When I first read ‘quit lit’ I was often triggered by people who wrote about how happy they were and how much better their lives were without alcohol in them - I thought they were smug and ingenuine. Turns out it wasn’t them triggering me at all, who knew?!

As my baby boy stirs in my lap, and my maternity leave hurtles forward I marvel at how I’ve shaped my life into one I truly love, by changing one simple thing. Except it’s not one thing, it’s a cascade, that could only start when I put the glass down. Cheers to that!

#alcoholfree #sobriety #sober #mentalhealth #mumlife #recruitment #personaldevelopment