Introducing … The Sober School

Hello there! Long time no see! I’d like to apologise for abandoning my blog without explanation. Have no fear, I didn’t disappear because something bad happened. Quite the opposite. I was busy being sober and happy – drinking tea, eating cake, catching up with old friends, making new friends, going out with my running club, trying new hobbies, starting new jobs and all sorts of other lovely stuff. I’ve been sober for 843 days now and I really am so happy with life. I don’t take my sobriety for granted but it’s pretty much become second nature now. In fact it all became so normal that I felt I didn’t have much to say … until now.

I wanted to let you know about a new project that I’ve been working on. Ever since I got sober I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen that there should be more help for people like me. Bright, professional women who know they’re drinking too much but just can’t seem to get out of the alcohol trap. Women who can’t bring themselves to tell their doctor how much they really drink but don’t fancy going to AA. Women who want to lose the booze, but not their social life – who desperately want to stop drinking, but can’t quite work out how to stay stopped.

Whilst the sober blogosphere is great, it’s quite a hidden corner of the internet. It took me a good few years of searching for help before I stumbled across the blogs that made such a difference to me. I wanted to create something more mainstream. I wanted to create the website that I wish had existed when I was trying to stop drinking. Something that talked about alcohol addiction in a relatable way, providing help and advice without being patronising.

So I decided to set up this: thesoberschool.com

It’s a little space online where you can find inspiration to help you stop drinking and achieve wonderful things. I have a new blog over there, plus some help and advice pages. I’m in the middle of training to be coach, because my plan is to create a course that guides sober wannabes through the first few important weeks of their alcohol free life.

There are also quite a few pictures of me on there, so if you want to put a face to a name have a look…

It’s an exciting and nerve wracking time. I’ve done something that once seemed unthinkable – outing myself to the world. I’ve reduced my hours at work and told my employers what I’m doing. I’ve also had to be really honest with friends. Until recently, even those in the know had only heard a sanitised version of my drinking story. There are still a lot of people in my life who don’t know everything yet, but I will tell them in due course.

So far the response has been brilliant. And I really hope it will all make a difference. I try not to sound too much like a preachy reformed drinker, but I really believe something big needs to change in our society. It shouldn’t be this hard to talk about being addicted to alcohol. We have no problem talking about smoking in these terms, do we?

This will be my last post on this blog. So if you want to follow my new blog, please do head on over to thesoberschool.com

I’m also on Facebook  Twitter and Instagram

Phew. That’s all for now.

Lots of love,

Kate

Spring is around the corner

I cannot believe it’s going to be the 1st of March tomorrow. Where is this year going? February has flown by and I’ve hardly posted at all because things have been busy, busy, busy.

The big thing that happened this month is that I told some real life people about my blog. Eeek. Not just any old people either – my parents. For various reasons, it suddenly felt like the right time to do so. Needless to say, it was a nerve-wracking experience, but all is good. I have been cringing a bit, thinking of the things they have read and subconsciously I think this may have put the brakes on me writing anything else for a while. But all in all, it feels great to be a bit more honest about things. Much of this blog is about drinking in secret and then getting sober in secret. All that secrecy had become a bit of a burden.

In other news, I have a new job. Well, a part-time job to be precise. As some of you will know, I have been trying to change careers for a while, but my biggest problem has been working out exactly what it is I want to do. I don’t want to write off journalism completely, but my current job definitely isn’t right for me anymore. I think stopping drinking has played a big part in me realising that. My new role can mainly be done from home, but it’s part-time enough for me to juggle it with my full-time job, for now at least. Eventually I hope it will provide a bit of a financial cushion if I decide to leave my proper job or take a year out. Who knows?! It feels like I have lots of options.

This past month hasn’t all been hard work. Last week I had a very chilled few days at a fancy spa. It was incredibly posh: think stately home, surrounded by beautiful countryside. I went with a friend and we knew as soon as we arrived that we might be a little out of place because the car park was like a Range Rover showroom. Apparently the spa has a few permanent residents who live there all the time, waited on hand and foot everyday. Can you imagine?!

My friend and I went to the spa primarily to relax, but once we arrived it became obvious that most people go there to lose weight. The food, whilst delicious, was very, very healthy. Everything was fresh and cooked from scratch. There were lots of salads, herbal teas and fruit to snack on. But incredibly, the spa also had a bar. I looked at the menu and noticed it was mainly organic wine and champagne. So no beer or spirits. But still … alcohol? In a wellbeing spa?

We were eating dinner one evening when one of the reception staff came over to our table. There had been a problem with the shower in our room and the receptionist was very apologetic about it. She wanted to get us a complimentary drink from the bar by means of apology. Would we like a glass of champagne, she wondered? My friend, who does drink, said yes. I explained that I didn’t, but that I could murder a Diet Coke or a tonic water. The receptionist looked at me like I’d just asked for a Big Mac and fries. “We don’t serve those kind of drinks here” she replied, shaking her head.

Now I know that diet fizzy drinks, loaded with artificial sweeteners, aren’t the healthiest beverages. But they must be better for you than champagne, which is loaded with empty calories and contains alcohol, a POISON. It was very tempting to point all of this out. But I didn’t. After all, the receptionist was only trying to be nice. So I took a deep breath, ordered a sparkling water and resolved that if I ever went back I’d smuggle some Diet Coke in with me …

Adjusting to life as a non drinker

To what extent should you change other parts of your life when you stop drinking? I was thinking about this in a club late last night, as I pretended to be having a great time, dancing away with the rest of the hen party I was with. The evening had been pretty hard work. There’d been drinks in a bar, a meal and then dancing. I only knew about half the group so there was a lot of small talk to start with. Quickly, everyone else bonded over wine and rounds of shots. Booze is great at making strangers the best of friends. Without alcohol, I did not feel that fake intimacy. There was nothing to numb the pain from my high heels. I wasn’t interested in any of the sweaty men in the club. I wasn’t really in the mood to dance. I felt very, very tired. Oh god, I thought. Have I become boring?

I think some people would say I shouldn’t have gone last night. It was always going to be an evening that revolved around alcohol. But I knew I’d be able to handle it and I did. If I’d been having a bad day, or was unsure of my ability to turn down a drink I wouldn’t have gone. Early on I decided to tell a few people about the 100 day challenge and they said very little about it. The only person who really didn’t get it was the bride-to-be, who got so drunk she kept forgetting what I’d told her. We had the “come on, just have one…” conversation about three times.

I’d been determined to go last night. To be honest, I think I was on some mission to try and prove that being sober doesn’t have to stop me living a normal life and joining in with my friends. I am still a fun person who can party with the best of them. I am. Aren’t I?

The problem is, the new me just doesn’t seem to like clubbing anymore. I loathe any event that’s just an excuse to drink. Which is a bit of a problem seen as drinking is our national pastime. Some of my oldest, closest friends are big drinkers. It’s their hobby, just as it was mine.

Over the past few weeks I’ve found it very hard to predict how a night out is going to go. Sometimes, I can meet friends in the pub or go to a house party and have a brilliant time. Slightly drunk friends can be funny and great company and often they don’t notice that I’m not drinking. But other times they really, really aren’t nice to be around. They can boring and repetitive and I sit there feeling excluded and resentful. 

What is the solution to this? I’m not sure. Do I get a bunch of new, sober friends and ditch all the old ones? Unlikely. Maybe I just need to get better at working out what makes a good night and what makes a bad one.