1-Year Sober: Here's What I've Learnt (2024)

1-Year Sober: Here's What I've Learnt (1)

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What better way to pop my Substack cherry than to celebrate one year sober! Yes, one whole year since I said **fck this sht, enough is enough, NO MORE!**

It does help that drunken Michelle was involved in a family argument that could have left an irreparable, atom bomb-sized fallout, ended up in a French hospital (confusing both me and the doctor with my Spanish infused French) having experienced some kind of seizure/paralysis, and being told (by my daughter) how scared she is when I’m drunk. (Not gonna lie, that’s twice now that I’ve been a complete dick to my kids when drunk—two times too many!) I can make light of it now, although I do still cringe and feel shame when I think of that night, but in all honesty? It’s about bloody time I did something about my drinking.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some great nights on the lash. Nights out with the right people, genuinely having a good time. But more often than not, once the buzz has worn off, the demons have dug their claws in and taken me to some very dark places.

I’ve put myself at risk time and again, gone along with things to appease because I knew the choice would be taken from me if I resisted. Blackouts have been my norm, and I’ve woken up with crippling hangxiety and amnesia more times than I care to remember. I’ve drunk more than should be humanly possible for my size and build and have fantasised about drinking myself to death frequently (definitely not normal…or healthy). And I've checked out mentally far too often while drinking when I’m supposed to be looking after my kids, not to mention been too hungover to parent properly.

There’s ‘nice’ drunk, then there’s monstrously-horribly-destructive drunk which was me. Most of the time. Especially towards the end. I woke up one morning to my husband’s somewhat pensive stare, and a ‘you were like you were when we first met’ admonishment which is not a time I like to remember. I recall nothing of the previous night’s aggression that he told me about. Or indeed the walk home. Which always makes it worse when you’ve been a complete c**t but can’t remember what you’ve said or done, or who you’ve upset this time.

1. You might gain weight

At seven months sober, I was still waiting for the miraculous weight loss that so many people spoke about. Then I realised my sugar intake had massively increased, as I swapped one ‘fix’ for another. But if abstaining from booze means reaching for the sweet stuff, or maybe even a little comfort/emotional eating at times of stress that would normally warrant a drink, then so be it! Focus on the booze, then sort the food out later. Let’s face it, a sugar rush is never going to be as harmful as booze-activated fight mode (unless, of course, you're diabetic!).

2. Exponential fitness gains

Since having kids I’ve neglected my fitness. The times I did try to get into some kind of fitness routine it didn’t last. Everything felt so hard that I gave up, or I was so inconsistent that my ‘regime’ petered out. I’m definitely someone who needs a challenge, goal or deadline to motivate me. At the start of this year, I began training for a half marathon and what can I say?! My fitness gains were astonishing! Not only that but I recovered quickly between runs and, when it came to race day, I was only three minutes slower than my PB, despite being sixteen years older, fatter, peri-menopausal… . Oh, and as someone who is most definitely not a morning person, I am now awake—without alarm—at the crack of dawn (I’m not necessarily getting up though…that still needs work).

3. Expect to feel worse before you feel better

Ever done Dry January and not felt any better after 31 days? Then thought ‘what’s the point’ and got straight back on the booze come 1st Feb? Unsurprising really. Alcohol is, after all, a poison. I don’t say this to scaremonger or from a self-righteous ‘now I don’t drink’ place. I’m simply stating facts. Even with the most optimally functioning liver it’s going to take your body a while to adjust to life without booze if you’re a frequent or heavy drinker (side note: if you’re alcohol dependent, please do not go cold turkey. Alcohol withdrawal can be life threatening so seek professional support.)

Let’s also not underestimate how mentally challenging abstinence can be. Alcohol is deeply ingrained in our culture—it’s more unusual not to drink. In reality, you’re likely to be asked why you don’t drink, but has anyone ever asked you why you do? Identity is often entangled with alcohol—the places you visit, the people you hang out with, the things and ways that you celebrate, how you relax. The question who am I without alcohol? can feel very confrontational and discombobulating. In fact, it can make you question everything. Not only that, but without your emotional crutch you’re going to be forced to feel all the feels, everything that you’d normally numb with alcohol, which can, simply put, feel sh*t. sh*ttier than sh*t.

If, like me, you went to some dark places with alcohol, you may be going to some darker places without. But guess what? If you can allow those feelings to move through you and permit yourself to truly feel them, they do pass. Eventually. (Just to be clear: they will come back. That’s the nature of being human.) This might sound like some psychobabbly BS but it’s true. Emotions are energy that need to pass through us through feeling. And I know feeling them can feel vulnerable which in turn can feel incredibly unsafe and scary and painful AF, like you’d rather die than have to feel that much pain. But stuffing them down—numbing them, avoiding them—gives them more power.

And with all of these feelings may come a lot of guilt (and good old shame) as you start to see things more clearly. Own it. Feel it. Forgive yourself. Recognise that you’ve learnt and grown since—when you know better you do better (thank you, Maya Angelou). Make reparations if needed. Then move on. Dwelling achieves nothing.

4. You’ll uncover memories you didn’t realise you had

…And they’ll likely hit you all at once! (This started happening to me around the ten month mark, once I’d got used to feeling the feelings again.) Anything you’ve experienced that had a strong emotional response at the time may suddenly rise to the surface so that you can finally process it. And it doesn’t have to be anything significant. It can be something you did or said to someone which, at the time, you over-analysed and felt guilty about, or someone’s bad mood or curtness that you internalised. It could be the time aged fourteen when you closed the door on someone because you didn’t check behind you like normal. (Guilty! And crazy that I carried guilt for something so inconsequential FOR TWENTY-ODD YEARS.) Basically, the things that happened—however paltry—that made you feel lousy but you pulled up your ‘big girl pants’, pretended you were ok, then stuffed them down into the abyss. [BTW, if you have (or had) RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) you may notice a lot of these memories crop up!] Let them rise to the surface, acknowledge them, honour whatever feelings come up, then send them on their merry way. The past is the past; there is nothing you can do that will change it.

5. Your social circle may get smaller

Sobriety is a great way to discern who you genuinely enjoy hanging out with. You might not want to hang out with your usual drinking buddies because a) you don’t want to be near alcohol (it’s okay if this is you, boundaries and self-care and all that) or b) outside of your mutual love of alcohol you have little to nothing in common. Similarly, people might stop inviting you out either because of a) above, or because maybe they prefer the louder, reckless, ‘fun’ version of you. It’s all good though. Embracing sobriety is embracing the emergence of a new you. Or, to be more specific, who you already are, already were, before alcohol seduced and hijacked your brain! Personally, I would much rather hang out in the allotment with my outdoorsy, mud-splattered friends, or spend hours at an easel, alone, than be in a pub these days. (Oh, how my twenty-year-old self would laugh, in the same way that I now look at her with a tinge of sadness.)

6. You’ll rediscover joy

Yep. All those things from your childhood that paused time, that left you in awe, curious, creative, are about to be rekindled. (And if, like me, you’re creative, your creativity is going to soar!) The hours spent drawing or reading. Dancing, humming, singing. Making and pottering for the sake of making and pottering. Finding joy in the small things. The rainbows, butterflies and bees. The sound of rain. Splashing in puddles.

You’ll spark new joys. The smell of coffee, freshly baked bread. An appreciation of the small, often overlooked things. You’ll notice them. You’ll be more present. I know this sounds really whimsical and I won’t pretend that you’ll be in this state of fairytale ‘bliss’ all the time. You won’t. You’re human. And life will still suck on occasion. But those glimmers of presence, awareness and joy will definitely increase.

7. You’ll experience more overstimulation and overwhelm

Alcohol is a depressant which is why, when we’re physiologically stressed, it’s the perfect antidote. You can’t fail to notice a wave of calm washing over a frazzled nervous system after the first few gulps. And with life being too fast, too loud, too stressful a lot of the time, it’s no wonder we turn to alcohol. It’s a coping mechanism; it takes the edge off. How amazing to find a strategy to make life feel better, more bearable, in the moment. Of course, there are healthier ways to deal with the stresses of life, but alcohol serves its purpose.

Alcohol is a great numbing agent for a hyper-sensitive nervous system which means that, without it, all of the too-muchness will be amplified. Everything will appear brighter, louder, smellier, hotter, colder. You might find you are touched out more frequently, that your head physically hurts from the noise and overstimulation, that you’ll feel more overwhelmed and become more snappy or feel like you want to implode.

I find that my highs are higher and my lows VERY low now that I don’t drink. It’s like being on a rollercoaster at times; there’s rarely any middle ground. You may even start to question your mental health when really it’s learning to manage your nervous system, manage your own needs—not easy if you’re forever managing others—that needs attention. Sometimes I just need to escape all human contact…which is basically an hour's bath in really hot, deep water. (I know this isn’t possible for everyone; my kids are at an age that they can look after themselves for an hour if I disappear and I’m lucky to have a supportive partner.)

My weighted blanket feels like a compression hug from a best friend, I wear sunglasses all year round, and sometimes I simply tell my kids or husband that I need space. Sound is a massive issue—I have such blood-boiling intolerance for noise—and Loop earplugs just aren’t doing it for me so I’m still finding my way on that front. But perhaps my biggest discovery as far as my nervous system goes since quitting booze is this…

8. It was never social anxiety!

My first sober jolly at the pub was a very pleasant and civilised affair with a lovely bunch of ladies. At one point I was even knocking back tea! By the time I got home at a sensible 10pm I felt frazzled and had to stay up for a couple of hours to wind down. That’s when I realised how overstimulating socialising is for me. Of course, I would have experienced the same level of sensory overload—if not more—in all my other drinking sessions, but alcohol, being the numbing agent that it is, desensitised me. All of those times that I thought I was feeling socially awkward and uncomfortable, all of those feelings of anxiety were, as it happens, too much sensory input, leaving me completely wired, tired and in a state of hypervigilance —nothing that several glasses of vino couldn't cure! Of course, social anxiety does make an appearance at times—our nervous systems are forever detecting ‘threats’ and sometimes we are in the wrong environment with the wrong people—but realising that most of the time it’s overstimulation helps me to manage myself better. And as someone who could never say no to another drink, or was always the last to leave (and outstayed my welcome on numerous occasions), it’s such a good feeling to leave at a sensible time, without FOMO or any pressure to stay, and be tucked up in bed before last orders!

I can’t imagine ever drinking again. That’s not to say that some life-changing, deeply traumatic event won’t derail me. But for now, I’m embracing sobriety and genuinely enjoying living what some might consider a more ‘boring’ life. Of course, it helps being in the f*ck It Forties and giving less sh*ts about what people think.

So there you have it! If you read to the end, thanks for staying.

I’d love to know—where are you at on your sober adventure? If you’re sober curious, what steps do you think you might take to quit or reduce your alcohol consumption? What support do you need? Let me know in the comments.