Hey there, I can’t tell you how nice it is for me to check in with you guys every week. It’s a great reminder of both where I have been and where I am now. In fact that is what I want to talk about this week, being sober and the fun that comes with that. 

I want to add because I haven’t said this yet – all these columns are written for the alcoholic who wants to stop drinking. I’ll be really glad if they educate or open up a dialogue about addiction but that’s not the primary aim. I am looking for the person who still suffers.

I say this because I don’t want to seem militant. My parents are evangelical Christians, so I know what it’s like having someone else’s dogma pushed on you and believe me that’s not what I am trying to do.

I don’t hate drink; I loved it that was my problem. Likewise, I didn’t go into recovery as a ‘healthy choice’; I do all this work because the alternative is depression, psychiatric hospitals and death. I try not to care who goes and gets drunk at Life; the person I want to focus on is the one who has sunk to such depths that to continue drinking seems as scary as not doing so. 

If you are at that place, I know how you are feeling. It is the jumping off point, and it’s incredibly sad. The idea of giving up your best friend, who you have built your life around or of continuing to live a life so painful, is terrifying. And if you do get sober, what then? What will your life become? What will your friends think? And how can you just go out and drink a Diet Coke? 

I guess I would say that it’s alright. It’s ok. It does get better. 

It’s hard at first, socialising sober is initially terrifying. But the fears calm and eventually it becomes fun again. In terms of my friends, yeah things changed, some left, but I found what I looked for in a friend changed as well. The close one’s – the real ones - stuck around. Staying sober while going out is actually kind of great; I get the same buzz I used to get at a party but now don’t suffer the consequences. Plus, a lot of people don’t even know that I don’t drink. Oddly enough it seems non-alcoholics don’t bother keeping track of whether I am drinking or not, why would they? 

But there is so much more to recovery than this. We become respectable, even admired. After all we’re the fuck-ups, the homeless, the thieves, the violent. Yet over time we learn how to live life, how to get along and do what the next beer always got in the way of us doing.

And so I started to learn how to be consistent; washing regularly, sleeping and eating three meals a day. All things that most people learn how to do when growing up and that I had spectacularly avoided. 

And I began to do things I had never been able to. I lived abroad, travelled, showed up for work, went to morning raves, had great relationships. All these things and more became my life. Recovery didn’t give me a new life, it gave me the life I was meant to have before drink got in the way.

And then I applied to Cambridge, and now I’m here, same as any other undergraduate. I'm indistinguishable in the street or at a party, but now able to be softly spoken and friendly, not embarrassing myself as the centre of attention. 

Everyone has their own desires, everybody’s life looks different but for me I know that I couldn’t do this alone. All this stuff I have told you might sound like bragging, I hope it does. Not for me mind you, my best thinking took me to three rehabs and a psychiatric hospital. I am bragging for this fellowship of support that I am part of.

Recovery then, for me at least, is not boring, I don’t know if I would still be sober if I was. It might seem like a long way away now, but it becomes something great, something that enables you to live a life beyond your wildest dreams.