Twelve months of sobriety have taught me that alcohol was never the problem; it was merely a red herring. I turned to booze in search of connection, help, and acceptance. However, all I found was inebriation, ironically preventing me from discovering those answers.
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Quitting alcohol was no easy decision. For ten years, seduced by its intoxicating grasp, I found a sense of belonging. As a teenager, alcohol helped me emerge from the shadows and enter an adult world where drinking was (and still is) the norm. Ask most British adults about their relationship with alcohol in their younger years, and many will regale you with stories of drinking from cans and plastic bottles in the park.
Alcohol is part of the cultural fabric of the UK. The pub is a place of comfort for many, and that’s not just because of the open fires and cask ales on tap. Pubs are the center of urban and rural communities. They attract those escaping the mundanity of their lives. They attract those meeting with friends. They attract those who just want to have a conversation.
I have fond memories of bitter evenings spent in cozy pubs as rain lashed against the window. Unfortunately, I also have regrettable memories of bitter evenings spent lashing out as the booze unleashed anger from within.
My relationship with alcohol is one of love and loss. One of ecstasy and regret. Twelve months ago, continuous regret eclipsed the ecstasy. Quitting was inevitable.
Since then, many have asked what it’s like to ‘go sober’. Have I gained superpowers? Am I happier? Does it make any difference whatsoever? Everyone’s relationship with alcohol is personal. So too are its benefits and drawbacks. This is my experience.
Social Drinking
For thousands of years, drinking alcohol has been a social activity. Long before ‘tinnies’ in the park, our ancestors marked celebration and commiseration with an alcoholic brew. In modern Britain, if you go out for a meal, chances are, alcohol will accompany it. If you unwind with colleagues after work, the pub round the corner becomes a familiar destination. If you are meeting up with friends… you see where this is going.
I’ve never felt the urge to drink at home. When I feel stressed, I don’t turn to alcohol to take the edge off. Never have I felt indebted to alcohol to be able to relax.
My relationship with alcohol is social; it helped me to feel like I belonged. Many dear memories I hold with friends, family, and colleagues feature alcohol in the backdrop.
I discovered solidarity in drinking. Without it, I was isolated in the world. But when I had a pint in my hand, I shared that in common with millions of people. I felt the warmth – and that’s before alcohol created the ‘beer jacket’ effect. But much like that phenomenon, while I felt warm beneath the surface, my heart only grew colder.
To my surprise, breaking the routine was not the most challenging part of quitting. Instead, it was severing the factor that created connections with friends and was a tool I used to explore the world. Quitting not only meant saying no. It meant turning my back on a practice that brought me comfort.
When I began, I struggled to bear what my peers might think. To most, I told them it was just another ‘dry January’. To those I trust, I revealed my plans to quit for good. Some understood. Others were confused. Most struggled to understand.
The first month was simple because I hid my true intentions from those I cared about. Fortunately, millions forego alcohol in ‘Dry January,’ and I was just another one of them. It was acceptable to turn down after-work drinks. It was okay to drink non-alcoholic beer at the pub with friends. That soft launch would ease my fears of how others would respond when I continued into February and beyond.
A sharper mind
One aspect of sobriety that isn’t profoundly personal is how it impacts our health. In the space of a week, the effects of better sleep are genuine. Alcohol is a depressant. When we take those first few sips, we experience euphoria and relaxation. We become artificially elated. Regardless of whether we leave on time or not, once alcohol enters your system, it takes a minimum of six hours to exit. So when you go for a drink with friends, family, or colleagues after work – it’s still working through your body when you go to bed.
That creates a disruption to our sleep patterns that many do not notice. Just a single late night spent drinking was knocking my sleep pattern out of kilter. That one night (with poor-quality sleep) led to multiple days of playing catch-up and trying to stabilize a routine.
Having a consistent sleep cycle has had a substantial physical effect. After eight-plus hours of high-quality sleep, my mind is sharper, my memory more reliable, and I have the energy to push myself physically further.
As the year has progressed – the days when I have had poor-quality sleep the night before are evident. My mind blurs. It’s hard to recall simple details. My imagination strays from the present. I can only speak from personal experience – but minimizing the disruption has laid a foundation for me to have more good days than bad.
Re-learning social skills
At 18 years old, I struggled with social anxiety. In my first week at university, I skillfully avoided ‘Fresher’s week’ without touching a drop, but I was lonely. Wondering what I was missing out on consumed my mind.
When curiosity got the better of me, the first night came to define my relationship with alcohol. In the space of a few pints of fizzy liquid, I was in disbelief at how quickly the anxiety faded. The restraints that had gripped me were released, and I was propelled into experiences and conversations I had feared only an hour before. The discovery had a profound effect; the courage I desired could be found in a bottle.
For a decade, in awkward social settings, alcohol became my crutch. At the first rumblings of social anxiety, alcohol was the answer. It would ‘grease the wheels’ so to speak. But opportunity gradually turned into dependency. I relied on alcohol to cope with those situations. Without it, I had never learned how to manage anxiety. Alcohol only numbs the noise in your mind – it does not vanquish it.
Its effectiveness also varies depending on the intensity of anxiety. For example, walking into a party triggers thoughts that differ greatly from approaching a stranger. When anxiety grew, I was left with two options: drink more to numb it further, or retreat. I rarely backed down.
My relationship with alcohol had taught me was that when faced with discomfort, you can drown it out with a drop of ‘Dutch courage.’ Only now do I realise, it only ‘helped’ ease minor moments of anxiety. With it, I could settle into a room of strangers. It settled me into first dates. But whenever the anxiety was immense, my fight or flight response would kick in. Drink more to cope, or walk away.
Without my crutch, I would have to re-learn how to overcome that discomfort. I still wanted to attend events where, inevitably, I’d meet strangers. Parties, gatherings, nightclubs, gigs, and networking events for example, had been how I had met close friends. Therefore, I would have to learn how to manage social anxiety without my crutch.
Embracing discomfort
My first instinct walking into a party when sober was to turn to the bottle. I sought comfort in alcohol. Without it, I felt naked. My nerves jangled. I’d lost the one thing that reassured me. However, I had committed to going ‘cold turkey’. I’d rather have run away than concede defeat. My only option was to endure the discomfort, for better or worse.
Those first 30 minutes were intense. That is when my ego screamed for a drink. To find comfort, I grabbed a soft drink and approached a familiar face to take the edge off. Very soon, I found my ability to make conversation was no different sober than with booze.
After putting in a few repetitions with unfamiliar faces, the anxiety faded; I soon became comfortable without the need for a drink. Facing down the discomfort had a disarming effect. It wasn’t as bad as my conscious was leading me to believe.
It’s worth noting that even now, the discomfort is present when walking into a room of strangers. Regardless of how many gatherings I attend, it’s always there, lurking in the background. But now, I understand that it fizzles out soon after it begins. I’ve learned the best way to handle discomfort is to accept it. Embrace it. What is the worst that could happen?
No more regret
Alcohol also became my way of releasing the pressure valve. When anger, frustration, and grief arose, I turned to booze to unravel whatever was coiling inside me. In retrospect, that was never going to end well.
We all have bad days. They are inevitable. We each manage them in different ways. I found alcohol helped me to be honest with my feelings. They would become trapped without it, causing them to expand rather than be released. For a decade, this led me to believe alcohol was helping me. I was convinced the best way to release those feelings was alcohol. This is a dangerous belief to follow.
When being honest and open, context is everything. Words may not break the skin, but they are capable of tainting the soul. With alcohol in the veins, the filter containing all your half-baked thoughts fades into the background. Opinions, grievances, and assumptions pour out. I didn’t just regret the hangovers. I regretted my behaviour. I regretted what I became. I hated what I saw. It’s unacceptable to blame that on the alcohol. Every lash of the tongue was my own.
I deluded myself. I thought alcohol helped me open up. In reality, it empowered my ego and allowed my unconscious to leak.
Quitting patched the leak. It forced me to find other ways to open. It led me to confront why they surface. No longer being able to blame my shitty behavior on alcohol liberated me. It made me accountable for my actions and helped me discover healthier ways to manage emotions.
Confronting loneliness
Enter any major city on a weekday evening, and you can find folks crammed inside pubs and spilling onto the pavement. Friends gather to regale tales of their week. Couples meet to spend intimate time together. Even sports teams congregate here after the final whistle blows.
It’s from this fabric that I made friends. What we shared in common was often the liquor that our days revolved around. These gatherings would swallow two days a week, each revolving around the same topics of conversation.
I discovered a connection in those gatherings. Without them, loneliness gnawed at my conscious mind. Through them, I found kindred souls with whom I shared something in common: alcohol. Around a few pints, the camaraderie I found helped drown out loneliness. Yet, as I walked home from those nights, my glass was still half-empty. I was sharing conversations with a company of folks I was comfortable with, yet the evenings I spent with them were unfulfilling. For years, it eluded me why I felt hollow.
Only after quitting alcohol did it become clear. I met with those friends for a while, only without the booze. But now I saw them with sober eyes. The comfort of their company was still there. However, it was plain that what we had in common was a love of the pint and bottle. The similarities soon began to run dry beyond that. Our shared experiences (mostly spent under a drunken spell) had pulled us together. When those evaporated, so too did our connection.
Before leaving those gatherings behind, I feared loneliness would rage inside. Yet, in a bittersweet twist, it never came. I was surrounded by solace, yet that desire for connection remained distant. This has been enlightening and confusing. I believed I could solve that longing by surrounding myself with people. Yet shallow relationships were not enough. Fulfillment only came from deeper connections, with folks I shared more in common with.
When quitting alcohol, I feared I might lose friends over it. I was suspicious what bound me to them was a love of alcohol. Allowing those bonds to fade altered my perspective. I realized loneliness could be present even when surrounded by others. The hollow feeling lurking in the pit of my stomach was a yearning for a deeper connection.
Re-defining the relationship
12 months of sobriety taught me alcohol was never the problem. Booze was the red herring. I turned to alcohol in search of connection, in search of help, in search of acceptance. All I found was inebriation, ironically preventing me from finding those answers.
It has taken 12 months to reach that conclusion. Only by removing alcohol was I in a position to confront those struggles. I no longer had a crutch to lean on. When in uncomfortable social settings, I either embraced the discomfort or ran from it. When loneliness crept in, I could only endure it and try to understand it. When I felt shame, anger, and grief; rather than resorting to numbing emotion, I instead sought to understand why they emerged.
Everyone’s relationship with alcohol is unique. We each have our own reasons for drinking. We crave it at different times and in different situations. Many have a healthy relationship with it. It facilitates bonds with others that can last a lifetime. It brings people together in times of celebration and commiseration. It can even bring satisfaction at the end of a hard day.
Quitting alcohol will never solve all your problems. Quitting won’t mean you are going to achieve your goals. It will not transform you into a better parent, sibling, friend, or colleague overnight.
But it will help you see the world differently. It will help you learn more about who you are and why you behave as you do.
That is the hidden benefit of sobriety. Understanding yourself is only the first step to becoming a better human being.