16 Ways To Be A Sober Badass And Have A Blissful Life

I have been sober nearly 14 years. Here is how I stay that way.

Oct 28, 2024

A happy smiling woman and her black dog, who is giving her kisses — Me and Twyla giggling on holiday

I used to be a mess. A real bad mess.

It was 2010 and I was seriously ill. Like, actually dying.

During my first divorce, I took up partying. All my so called friends were doing the same thing and I had been going through a tough time. It was fun, and when the kids went away for the weekend once a fortnight, I was finally free to do all the things I had missed as a teenager.

I was a good looking young lady and out to have a good time. I felt like I deserved some fun, after being through child abuse, having big debts that were not of my own doing, and somehow I found myself as a very young mother, alone and responsible for two autistic little humans. Having left home aged just 15 and struggled for what seemed like an eternity just to get by, I was done.

I wanted fun and freedom.

I met my second husband through his drug dealing and surprise surprise, he was not very nice. Very quickly, I was besotted. He was controlling and manipulative, love bombed me intensively, and despite all the warnings people were giving me, I was swept off my feet by the excitement and danger of it all. We were quickly married. I became a cocaine addict along with him, and he became very violent.

The whole thing was a mess from start to finish. In all honesty, I played my part in the drama by sticking around, arguing and fighting back, being desperate for him to love me and not seeing that I was putting the drugs and lifestyle before my own (plus his own three) children. I should have changed the locks the first time the police were called and been strong and sensible, but instead I kept begging him to come home and the cycle would start all over again.

My poor neighbours, I shudder to think of all the terrible things they must have gone through living next door to us. Even more so, my own kids in our home. I will feel guilty about it until my dying day, and all I can ever do is try to be better in the future.

I developed PTSD, which became apparent as my second divorce wore on, and I found living a normal life extremely difficult.

How The Drinking Started.

When I started down the path of alcoholism I had recently given up the cocaine, having broken free of my second marriage, and I decided I wanted to be a better person. I went cold turkey and found that being drunk took the edge off it.

So I unwittingly swapped one addiction for the other. I told myself that I was winning. That drinking was better than drugging.

At first I could handle it, but as the weeks turned into months, I drank more and more until I was drinking daily 1litre of vodka and three bottles of wine just to stop the shaking and vomiting. I actually felt more healthy drunk than I did sober as the withdrawals were dreadful. So I became dependant, very quickly, believing I was not hurting anyone and “at least this way was legal, not like the drugs…”

“Sort Your Shit Out.”

By the time I sought help I was in big trouble. The social services had been called on me, for about the third or fourth time and they meant business. They were getting to the point they were straight up telling me things “didn’t look great” and that I needed to sort my act out. The school headmistress also pulled me aside in the playground early one morning to tell me to get a breath mint as I stank of alcohol again.

The doctor was even more blunt. My Dr said to sort my shit out or I’d be dead before Christmas that year.

My liver was not working as it should and it hurt, a lot, like a huge bruise that never healed.
I had developed megalocytosis, meaning my blood cells were not working properly and didn’t carry oxygen or nutrients as they should any more.
I was covered in bruises with no explanation of how they got there and they took months to heal.
I had blackouts and got in fights.
My hands shook constantly and I couldn’t raise them above hip level without losing control of them. My fingers were puffed up like they had arthritis and I couldn’t straighten them out without pain.
My eyes were so dry but they watered continuously.
I had panic attacks at the thought of going to bed as I wouldn’t be able to drink while I was asleep and I knew how ill not drinking for more than an hour or so would make me.
I had fits in what sleep I could get.
I felt faint most of the time and would have to sit down at a bench on my way to buy alcohol at the shop as the kids went off to school.
My kidneys hurt.
My stomach and intestines bled.
I had vomiting and diarrhoea every day.
My hair was falling out.
My teeth became see through, like glass and began to shatter at the slightest impact.
My eyes were bright yellow.
I hallucinated at night, so many scary things.

The Horrors.

The fancy word is “Delirium Tremens.” Most people get it two or three days after withdrawal from drinking and it is fatal in a lot of cases.

I often had it within minutes.

Some people get rats, I’m told, running around on the floor... I got spiders.

It always began with dark lines squiggling across my eyes, that evolved into cobwebs in the corners of the room as I lay in bed at night.

At first I’d try to ignore them, but they kept getting bigger and bigger.

These cobwebs became spiders on the ceiling. In turn, they slowly become insects, getting closer and closer until they were coming out of my pillow. They crawled on my skin and went in my mouth and up my nose - the only way I could get rid of them was to turn on the light.

Even that didn’t always work.

Sometimes trying to touch them made them vanish. So there I would sit, in the night, shaking, reaching out and touching things that were not there. All night, every night.

There would be people who were long dead walking around my room, tv characters threatening to kill me, children sitting on the cupboards staring silently at me.

Sometimes I would half sleep and then not know which reality was sleeping and which was hallucination. If I closed my eyes, they still felt open. My brain was still seeing things as if I was flicking between two rooms, two dreams, and I didn’t always know if the light was on or if I was imagining that too.

I had to take a nightly drink to bed to drink in the night, or I wouldn’t have even made it up the stairs from the sheer fear of not having a drink beside me. My nerves were well and truly shot, and my life was one big nightmare. They call this phase “the horrors” and they are not wrong.

It was one of the scariest and most embarrassing times of my life.

The Final Drink.

I had already relapsed twice, after being given sleeping tablets to get me through “the horrors” and the doctors were not going to give me another round after this one for fear I’d develop another addiction. I was on the verge of losing my kids, having already lost my self respect and had already tried to slit my wrists, over dose on medication and more in an effort to relieve those around me from having to put up with me.

I honestly thought they would all be better off. I was a serious fucking mess.

The last time I relapsed, my kids came back to our tent on holiday to find me passed out, with my head in a carrier bag of my own vomit. Lovely example of motherhood.

I Quit Drinking.

So there I was, a few months after the tent incident. Fireworks night 2010.

I knew that I would not get through fireworks night without a drink, so I set that as my final drinking day, and just like the other two times I had set about getting sober, I took the sleeping pill after three bottles of wine and some vodka, and I went to sleep.

The kids were being taken care of and I knew this was it now. My final chance before I drank myself to death, to have a good life.

For the first time in years, I slept. Glorious, comfortable, no dreaming, no nightmares. Just sleep.

The next day, I didn’t get up. I had a drink of water, a wee, another tablet and went back to sleep. I repeated this in the evening, and then again the next day. In fact, I slept for four days solid, waking only to drink water and take enough medication to put me back to sleep again.

On the fifth day, I finally ate something and threw it straight back up again. I hadn’t eaten solid food in months at that point and my body had no idea what to do with it. I’d simply existed on alcoholic drinks. Even coffee made me wretch. It had been over a year since I had drank a hot drink and the concept seemed alien.

How To Stay Sober.

In all honesty, those few days of sleep were easy. I slept through them. The hard part was staying sober once I got out of bed.

I was determined to not fuck up again this time, so I called Alcoholics Anonymous. My two earth angels came out a few days later, and arranged for me to go with them to a meeting.

While AA was not for me, for very long (I’m a Pagan and it’s a bit Godly for me,) it was very useful and helpful in the first year or so. I learned some valuable lessons about keeping myself safe and sober from the people who were actually living sober lives.

Be grateful - Thinking about all the things you don’t/can’t have will always lead to you feeling like you are missing out. If you stop, and think for a few seconds of all the things you DO have, you can learn to be happy with it.

Your friends & family. You probably ate last night. You are likely to have a roof of some description over your head. Your clothes on your back. Your coffee in your cup. If you are reading this you have access to the internet, in some way. Not everyone has help with their alcohol addiction. Many do not survive it but you have so far.

There are billions of people the world over who do not have all the things you do. Grow up, stop whining, and start being thankful.
Be accountable - You got yourself into this mess. You likely did some horrible stuff, probably told a bunch of lies, put your loved ones through hell. We all did. Stop blaming everyone and everything else. You chose to drink.

It’s what we do NOW that matters most.

If you make a promise, bloody well keep it. Stop thinking everyone else will pick up the pieces of YOUR mess. Tell the world exactly what you are (an alcoholic) and that you are going to do something about it. And then actually do something about it.

Tell the people in the shop not to serve you drink. Ditto the pub.

Pull your finger out and make a stance that you not going to be that person any more.
Eat chocolate - Nobody fancies a pint after six Mars bars. In fact, nobody fancies anything after six Mars bars. Not even another Mars bar. Keep a chocolate drawer in the kitchen and when you feel the urge to drink, force some chocolate down your throat instead. The sugar helps with the cravings.
Find things you like that are non-alcoholic - and treat yourself to them liberally. As long as those things are not going to hurt you (so no drugs etc.)

You will find you have a lot of money saved from not buying alcohol, you can indulge yourself in something better with it.

For me, in the beginning I drank copious amounts of Ginger Beer. I had never tried it before I gave up drinking and as I had never put vodka in it, it didn’t taste like anything was missing when I tried it. All the other soft drinks I knew to that point tasted watery without vodka, so trying new soft drinks was a gamechanger.
Enjoy the high after about 3 months - when you feel healthy and wealthy. At this point your insides will be starting to return to normal. You will have been sleeping better, be better hydrated and your body will be getting more nutrition. Your symptoms will be healing and you’ll be feeling great. You will have money for the first time in ages. This will be the best time you have had in years.

DO NOT FUCK IT UP.

I was able to take my kids on FOUR holidays that first year. FOUR. We had never known a time like it. It was so much fun and gave me so much incentive to keep being better.
Find things to do that are interesting and satisfying - I started working in the local food bank to keep myself busy. I grew an allotment in my garden. I took up night classes in psychology and counselling so that I could better understand myself and others.

Not sure what you enjoy doing? Try and remember what you did as a kid. For me that was reading, crochet, knitting and embroidery, and my Game Boy. So I took up yarn crafts and opened a little Etsy shop selling bits and bobs and I treated myself to a laptop with the money I saved from not drinking, to play games on (eventually learning to write and doing dog courses on it too!)
If in doubt, get undressed and go to bed - It is a lot harder to bother yourself to get back up, go to the shop and give in to alcohol than it is to go and get in bed, have a cry if you need to, and just go to sleep. I guarantee you will be glad you did.
Live in the day in which you find yourself - This was a brilliant piece of advice. Don’t be tempted to wonder what you will do at the weekend … or at Christmas … or on your birthday … or at any other time you used to drink.

Just think about today.

What can you do TODAY to get through to bedtime, so you have another day sober on your calendar? The future can be overwhelming, but today is generally pretty easy.
Avoid the alcohol aisle and the pub - and don’t allow anyone else to keep alcohol in your home either. If it’s not there for you to drink, you can’t drink it. Ditto the pub, at least for now.
Start doing things to build your future - It’s harder to give up on the future when you have skin in the game. I started by doing courses, volunteering and eventually became an accredited and chartered, self employed dog behaviourist, by investing in myself and my learning.

When you have things to look forward to, that do not involve drinking or being drunk, you want to stay sober to get to them.
Make new, sober friends - Support groups are a good start, but some of my best friends I have met away from the topic of alcohol completely. My partner I met through my dog behaviour group on Facebook. My best friend through a college I studied with. My old, drinking friends have melted away, and all of my social life now revolves around people I met sober and have more in common with than simply getting smashed.
Drive everywhere - Your perfect excuse not to drink, should you find yourself in a situation where you feel tempted, is that you have to drive. Or, have an alarm go off on your phone that sounds like an “emergency” text message to give yourself an excuse to peel away if you want to.

Always have an escape planned from social situations in advance, to help you stay in control of yourself.

Or, simply be honest and say that you are uncomfortable and wish to leave the situation you are in. Anyone who is worth caring about will understand and let you go without a fuss.
Talk to people when you are struggling - Friends and family might not “get it” so if you choose to confide in them, be aware that they may genuinely not understand the feelings that are compelling you to feel like you might give in.

However, they might appreciate the heads up. I find it best to let my close ones know that I am struggling and immediately also let them know that I am doing something about it by talking to this person, or that organisation, so they know to keep an eye on me, and go easy on me, but without me getting all the grief about how selfish I am etc.
Be honest - You know that you have not been great in the past. The least you can do is tell the truth about it now, to yourself and to other people. Not only will being honest mean that gradually people will learn to trust you again, but you will also be able to start clawing back your self respect.

If you can’t respect and trust yourself, who can?

Plus - it’s easier to remember the truth about things than it is to make up things and try and remember what stories you told. Being honest is far less stressful long term. And less stress means less chance you will drink again.
Remember, no you can’t have just one. Ever. - That is how relapses happen. Get it into your head you will never drink again and that this is a GOOD thing.

YOU DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL.

Also, stay away from mouthwash, chocolate liquors, cough medicine and other sneaky sources where alcohol can find its way into your mouth.

I find that I am ok with restaurant meals where alcohol was there but has been cooked off - such as a dash of red wine in a Bolognese sauce, but for a long time I avoided that too, just incase. (I also do not keep alcohol in the house to use as an ingredient in my own cooking, finding alternatives such as stock or certain vinegars and juices to be just as tasty.)
Enjoy your new life - I won’t lie, the first year was hard. I avoided everyone, everything, sometimes white knuckling through the days. I diligently went to two AA meetings a week, and stopped seeing any of my old friends.

With each passing birthday, anniversary, celebration, and at Christmas and during the holidays, I carefully managed exactly how I would escape should I feel uncomfortable.

I learned to say “no” to things I didn’t want to do, and over that first year, I grew so fucking strong and determined that with each passing milestone, I knew I’d be ok.

The second year was much easier as it was no longer a year of “firsts.” No more “first sober birthday” or “first sober meal out” or any of those other things. I began to realise the only time I thought about drinking was while I was at AA so I quit going there too, being sure to keep in touch with my earth angels and knowing that I can return if I ever feel the need to.

Since quitting, 14 years ago this year, I have raised my kids into awesome humans, I’m qualified up to the stars with dog behaviour courses and training certificates, and more. I’ve found a loving and kind partner, who I adore. I have a dog behaviour business and am self employed. I’m a real, paid writer with a book and everything. I have true friends, and I am a good friend and family member. I helped care for my Nan, repaying some of her kindness that she showed me as a child. I’ve gained respect, both from myself and from others. Life is good.

I’m living proof that you CAN change when you want to. You just have to want it enough to go through the hard stuff, knowing there is light of your own making at the end of tunnel. That light acts as your North Star and you must follow it until you no longer need to.

Today’s Sub Stats:

I promised I would share with each week, my stats, so that a new writer could see what happens to us “normal” writers who are not Substack superstars, or gurus or making thousands of pounds. Here is this week!