This is Exactly How I Stopped Drinking
When I started my sober journey I wanted to know EXACTLY how to stop drinking. I looked for the playbook for a long time. And what I discovered is that there isn't a playbook. The path to sobriety is different for everyone. I will tell you, though, how it happened for me. Here are a few thoughts on exactly how I got sober.
Get informed, get started + get connected
Get informed 📖
Did I wake up one day, decide to stop drinking, and then stop drinking forever? Nope. It was a p-r-o-c-e-s-s. I stopped drinking in 2020 but the process started in 2018. Honestly, I was questioning my drinking way before that but 2018 is when I took action. And what did that action look like? Quit lit and sober podcasts. If you're unfamiliar, quit lit is the term for sober memoirs. And I devoured them (while still drinking) for years. Quit Like a Woman, We are The Luckiest, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, and Drinking, A Love Story are a few of my favorites. I'd listen to sober podcasts during the day - put on my headphones and walk for miles listening to other people's stories, hoping they'd tell me the secret, give me the playbook. There are a TON to choose from now, but my favorites at the time were The Edit Podcast, The Home Podcast, and Recovery Elevator. I spent two years reading and listening while still drinking. I was learning. And I couldn't unlearn any of it.
Get started ⏱
After many starts and stops I finally reached the point of saying “uncle”. I was tired of moderating, thinking about drinking, being hungover - ALL OF IT. I picked a date and joined Annie Grace's Alcohol Experiment. After uneventfully polishing off a final bottle of wine on July 31st I started the experiment on August 1st. It was EXACTLY what I needed - online, anonymous (if I chose), had a lesson each day, and had homework. I did each lesson at the time I would usually open a bottle of wine in the evening and I put myself to bed immediately after finishing a lesson - which means I went to bed at 7 pm for the better part of a month 😴
Get connected 👯
30 days turned into 70 and I was still not drinking…but didn't have a place to talk about it. And I needed to talk about it. Getting sober is a HUGE deal and it's all-consuming in the beginning. I needed to talk to people who got it. And that's where TLC came in. TLC stands for The Luckiest Club. It's an online sobriety support community started by Laura McKowen (author of We Are The Luckiest mentioned above) during the pandemic. I followed Laura on IG and knew about TLC but had no intention of joining. I guess I felt embarrassed about it? I was not a person who needed to belong to a sobriety support community. Except I was. And I am. Because connection is key in sobriety. I joined TLC in October 2020 and the community continues to be my #1 resource.
