7 Years Sober – Listening to and Trusting me

14th April 2025.

Today I am celebrating that it has been 7 years since I last drank alcohol.

I use the word celebrate and yet I still notice that the connotation of celebration for me and so much of our culture involves alcohol.

And yet, I am very much internally happy and celebrating the fact that I no longer do and have zero desire to drink.

Back up to roughly 10 years ago when I first started to notice that alcohol was creating challenges for me, rather than the fun it had in the past.

I started noticing that after a few drinks I would have periods of time that I might not remember and then devillish hangovers that led to a lot of self recrimination, shame and suffering, even if I knew I hadn´t done anything wildly lary the night before. Noticing that the wine I used to celebrate the end of a busy week was resulting in me falling asleep at 9pm instead of spending connected time to my husband. Noticing that hot flushes and sleep disruption got way worse after even a couple of glasses of said wine. Noticing that I might end up spending the best part of a couple of days recovering physically and mentally if I drank any more than a few glasses.

It took a lot of noticing before I decided to do something different.

At that time, I was only drinking at weekends and never when my husband was away, but noticed when I got to a Friday or him coming home, that I was longing for a cold glass of white wine to take the edge off and just be able to relax. Nothing wrong with that our culture might say. But I knew that it didn´t feel right to feel that I needed alcohol to relax, plus I found it hard to only have just one glass and when I had much more than that I would suffer the consequences for it.

I started to get curious around it, but that brought up a lot of fear and resistance. After all, I was not an alcoholic! I only drank at weekends, not for long periods of time including whenever my husband was away and dry January, never drank alone, etc, etc. That meant I didn´t have a real problem and so I could carry on. Right?

I started to dip into some ´quit lit´ starting on Instagram (including – Laura Mckowen, Holly Whittaker, Izzy at Sobertopia and Emma at Sobersonic) who showed me a bit of their journey, dimmed the shame, inspired me and kept my curiosity alive. I later read a book “Drinking: A Love Story” by Caroline Knapp, in which I could identify with some things, but not others, I could quite easily dismiss it and say it was a very different situation to mine. At this time I had also been to some AA meetings as part of my day job and couldn´t identify with a lot of the stories there either, but I still noticed something in all that was shared. Part of the challenge for me was that in the culture I found myself, I wanted to know where I fit in. I wanted to have an answer, possibly a label (although certainly not the a-word) and know what was really going on for me. I didn´t really identify with any one person or voice. I didn´t know whether or how to continue this journey or whether just to carry on regardless. I didn´t know back then that I could just listen to and trust my own voice, my own journey.

The curiosity still lingered, but it was largely drowned out by my fears:

“If you are exploring this, then it must mean you have a problem.”

“If you stop drinking, then what will happen in your marriage? You both enjoy having a few drinks together.”

“To not drink is really boring and let´s face it you aren´t that interesting anyway.”

“If you do something different to everyone else, they are going to think you are an alcoholic”.

“Who is going to want to go out and have fun with you if you aren´t the party person you always have been?”

“Who are you without alcohol?”

The fears were loud and shaming. And guess, what? This often led to more drinking!

Until I had enough of feeling crap inside and out. Until I thought to myself, what in my life am I really escaping by drinking? I have 2 wonderful kids (and what kind of role model will I become if I continue as they get older too?) plus a great husband. Maybe, just maybe the alcohol is actually creating more problems than it is helping me escape from. Maybe it is actually keeping me stuck in fear and anxiety.

So, I experimented with my 3 drink rule. For several weeks I only allowed myself 3 drinks, as I knew I felt ok at 3.

This went pretty well, until several weeks later when we went on holiday and I allowed myself a ´holiday´ from that rule and to have more than 3 drinks. I may have had 4 or 5, but ended up feeling totally shit on holiday. I can remember now how it felt to be in a beautiful place with my family and feeling groggy, tired and really beating myself up, including for finding an excuse to break my own rule.

Part of me knew then I needed to do something totally different, more radical. Although I still wasn´t ready to really hear that.

I had to disentangle myself from all the messages and voices and realise that alcohol was hindering not helping me and was not really part of who I was.

Looking back this feels totally ironic as I had always prided myself in my 20´s and 30´s about how much I could drink and my weekends would revolve around going out and, essentially, binge drinking. Was it just parenthood and aging that was making me this way?

Quite possibly, but when I started to dig a bit deeper I could see that I had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol from the start.

It helped me with social anxiety, to relax and switch off, to celebrate the end of the week, to have a buffer at the end of a busy day, to grease the wheels of new social situations, to help relationships be more open and honest, to fit in, to be more interesting.

As I started to get curious about my own relationship with alcohol, being led by my own curiosity and other sober ´pioneers´ it made me realise I couldn´t just put in rules or boundaries around alcohol. I had to just stop.

So I set the date to stop for Friday 13th April 2018.

I said to myself I would try for a month. But I knew I was done. I drank at a friends´ dinner party on 13th April, even though I didn´t want to, because I didn´t want to disappoint them (the people pleaser in me) I was actually looking forward to not drinking again the day after.

And, I am quite proud that I haven´t (knowingly) drank since (I say quite as a – I am British and b – It has not been a struggle for me). I can count the number of times I have wanted a drink on one hand and those have been times when I felt uncomfortable and wanted to fit in e.g. at a family celebration or when I just felt uncomfortable socially and felt it could help me feel more relaxed. (For 100% transparency I have unknowingly drank alcohol at least once, thinking it was alcohol free cider and I still eat brandy butter – how could I not?!)

Have my fears eventuated?

Yes and no.

My relationship with my self is better than it has ever been. I listened to the different parts of me that felt scared and unseen and they are still there and I try to listen to all of me more these days. Over time, I feel like I have got out of a lot of recurrent patterns I was stuck in, especially my anxiety, my inner dialogue and certainly feel better physically and mentally.

Having talked to my husband about my fears since the start he has been nothing but supportive and has been very happy to have a designated driver.

With friendships it has been more tricky. Having lived in Spain nearly 6 years now, none of my current friends have ever known me drinking so that sometimes feels a little odd. I wonder sometimes whether they know I still love to go out and dance and have fun – but I am working on that!

With older friendships it can still be a bit of a surprise for people that I have stopped drinking, but most people are totally cool with it. And if they are not, that probably indicates something they might choose to get curious around.

Some people probably do think I am a recovering alcoholic. But I have spent way too much of my life worrying about what others think of me, rather than listening to myself and what I want and need.

I don´t really talk much about not drinking and it has taken me a while to share a bit more about my journey to get here. Partly because I don´t want to be just seen as someone who doesn´t drink, partly because I wasn´t ready nor did I have the words to explain exactly my journey and how it felt, without it sounding like I was judging others.

And I admit I did used to judge others for their drinking. Until more recently, I realised that my judging others was also me judging myself. I know that part of me would still continue to drink if it could, be in the same patterns and routines week in week out and feeling afraid, suffering and stuck. I made the right decision for me to listen to another voice inside of me at that time and start to tune in. I am clear now that my journey, my decision is not necessarily the same or right decision for everyone.

I can see now with years of listening to my own and others´ experiences & wisdom, how the fear voices kept me stuck. My worried ´hypervigiliant´ voice was telling me that if I changed, I would be ostracised and left alone. The people pleaser in me told me that I would make others uncomfortable and would be rocking the boat if I made a different choice. These voices fed into each other and tried to drown out anything else (and won a lot of the time!) But, thank goodness, there was another voice inside of me that also wanted to be heard (sounds cheesy I know) that I started to listen to more and more and to start to trust. I was able to start witnessing my own suffering and that prompted me to get curious about what I really wanted and needed. I gave myself permission to explore that without any expectations and in my own time.

It led me to where I am today, to still not be drinking 7 years on. I am so glad that I listened to that very quiet and scared voice. I wish I had listened to it sooner, it was there all along. It would have saved me a lot of pain and struggles, let alone money and hangovers if I had of done. But the main thing is that I listened.

My journey is not for everyone.

I don´t think everyone needs to stop drinking alcohol.

Do I think we could do with questioning our relationship with it? Most certainly.

What is in our way from doing that?

Fear, worries, doubts, insecurities can all rear their heads. In a culture that still glorifies alcohol, even if it is changing slowly. It can still feel scary and lonely at times to go against the current.

I do feel a bit of a rebel by not drinking. And I actually love that feeling of being part of a growing revolution. I love most of all that I am listening to and trusting me, rather than all the other voices out there that can impact in here.

But I also know I wouldn´t have done it if I hadn´t been inspired by so many people before me who also questioned their own relationship with alcohol. I am so grateful that they did not only get curious, but they they also shared their journey publicly.

I hope by sharing a bit of my journey, it may help someone else to get curious too.

If you have any thoughts, observations, questions, please do share below or send me an email if you would rather have a more private chat. I always love to hear from you!

Are you curious to listen to what might be keeping you stuck in your habits or patterns with alcohol or anything else that is not really supporting you right now?

I am offering 5 people a complimentary ´Breakthrough the Noise´ session (normally 65 Euros) with me before 25th April if you are curious to explore together. Please send me an email – hello@emmathornelees.com and we can take it from there.

Thank you so much for reading and for being on this courage journey – together!

With love,

Em

Thank you image – Kevin Butz on Unsplash