‘Sober curious? So was I, until I failed at dry January…’

Today marks three years since I last had a drink – and no one is more surprised than me, for my tee-totalism was far from planned. Turns out, the best life changes rarely come neatly on New Year’s Day

I honestly don’t remember my first new year’s resolution.

My memories of Hogmanay as a child are fleeting – being woken at 11.30pm to celebrate the bells with my parents. The first year I was allowed to stay up all the way through, watching Jools Holland. The time, aged 15, I got a glass of something stronger to toast with – a sort of passing of the alcohol baton, I guess, given twelve months later, my parents became designated drivers, forced to scoop my sozzled self into a car at 1am after a night of partying with my pals. It wouldn’t be the last time.

Every new year after that one was accompanied by alcohol and gradually, so too was every other big occasion. Birthdays, Christmases, funerals, Fridays, all celebrated or commiserated with booze. None of us had a problem, at least not yet. Still, sobriety seemed, frankly, out of the question. Many of those special occasions I barely remember now – though the photos suggest they were a lot of fun. New year, in particular, was particularly debauched.

Yet, from my late-twenties onwards, I started to notice a cloud looming over those parties. Increasingly, it seemed as though everyone spent a significant proportion of the celebration discussing the many and varied ways they planned to self-improve as soon as they’d sobered up.

Self-flagellation became a collective mood. Dry January became a thing. But whoever kept a promise made while pissed? I know I never did.

Promises we can keep

By my mid-thirties, it seemed to me as though the bulk of January each year was spent ruing the breaking of promises made at its optimistic start. I was determined 2019 would be different.

Having entered divorce proceedings in early 2018, I’d been looking forward to welcoming the new year as a single woman for the first time in over a decade. Yet with a child at home, legal bills looming and my ex’s endless criticism ringing in my head, I’d become more anxious than ever before – and when the new year finally arrived, I was doubting myself in every possible way.

My Dry January ended with a whimper after just five days. When I was handed a glass of champagne at a press weekend and told not to be a party pooper, I didn’t so much cave as say ‘sure, why not?’ with barely a second’s thought. With that, my resolution was gone. I had a couple of glasses and went to bed, nothing to write home about.

But the next morning, as I awoke in a five-star hotel being paid for by a fashion company, I didn’t feel rested. I felt fed up, worried and annoyed at myself for breaking a promise I’d only set because it seemed the right thing to do. Slowly, I realised I didn’t want to be there, networking on a weekend, at all. I wanted to be at home with my little boy. Increasingly, was drinking to drown out the niggling voice telling me that everything I was doing, I was doing to meet the expectations of others. And it wasn’t serving me.

New beginnings

A couple of weeks later, after tucking my wee guy into bed, I poured a glass of wine. Then I stopped, looked at it, and somewhere inside my head, a lightbulb flickered. I wasn’t drinking problematically by any societal standard. I didn’t drink every day, I’d never drunk in the morning and I’d largely left hedonism in my twenties. Yet increasingly, drinking didn’t feel fun. It felt like something I did to avoid dealing with the trauma of a painful and traumatic few years, and increasingly, the hangovers that used to come after a big night out had become existential crises after two glasses of pinot.

Having started to question whether the anxiety and exhaustion were worth the bother, I poured my glass carefully back into the bottle and recorked it. Maybe tomorrow? I didn’t make any promises to myself, but decided instead to just wait until I actually, actively wanted a drink. The day never came.

As I stopped drinking, my anxiety began to subside. I felt stronger, brighter, more energetic. I started doing other stuff – swimming in the sea, reading books again, writing just for fun rather than for a pay cheque. I quit a job that was making me miserable and took another short freelance gig that flew me across the world. For the first time ever, I attended parties with strangers without a drink in my hand and, once I overcame my nerves, I had a ball. A month became three, then six, then at some point I more or less stopped counting. I started to feel brave.

Since then, I’ve done all sorts of things drinking me never would have done. Sober dating was weird and at times hysterical, but gave me a whole new insight into what I actually needed out of life, love and relationships. Turns out, you can learn a lot about a date’s intentions by their reaction to a ginger beer order…

Going to gigs became more immersive without regular trips to the bar. Life became fuller. My confidence grew. I stopped trying so hard to please and had more fun as a result. I got genuinely happy being single – at which point, of course, I met the man who is now my husband, and who ironically makes me feel a bit drunk.

I say all of this not as a push towards sobriety. It’s my choice (one I am lucky to have,  addiction being a very different ball game) and it works for me. Rather, after three years of having to actually feel my feelings instead of drown then, what I’ve learned is that my gut is usually right.

I don’t know why I finally tuned into it on a random evening in late January, but doing so changed my approach to everything that’s come since, including the shitshow 24 months we’ve all just endured, and I’m very much happier for it.

But the biggest lesson I’ve learned from the last three years? Happiness never emerged from self-hate. Kicking yourself for the fact you failed at Dry January won’t change the outcome. Crying over that abandoned diet, or punishing yourself for the fact you’ve still not given up the vape and started daily yoga, won’t suddenly make it happen. So, screw the self-punishment.

The best promises come from listening to yourself – even if it’s already January 31…