Six Lessons I've Learned in Six Years Sobriety

September 17, 2023 samantha perkins

It’s been six years since I stopped drinking. A lot has changed. I have a middle schooler. I’ve moved. I’ve made new friends. I’ve changed jobs, again and again. I’ve lost friends. I’ve healed. I’ve declined. I’ve experienced immense joy and immense stress. Covid. The list goes on. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that I still don’t drink.

Here are six things that I’ve learned:

Community matters. I stopped drinking by reading books. My “community” was made up of sober women who had gone before me. They wrote about it. They wrote so much about it that I could curl up in bed and feel like I was talking to my best friend (even though we had never met). I still get a lot of support from those sober women! I still read their books, I still listen to their podcasts, I still lean on them when I’m feeling stressed. But an instagram friend or a stranger with a blog is no replacement for real life sober people who care about you and love you.
After Covid, I started a local sober women’s group. At the time, I thought I was doing it as a service to them. You know, helping people rethink their relationship with alcohol. The truth is, I get more from the group than I give. We meet for coffee, we go out to dinner together, we go to fun events together, we text with each other, and we support each other through hard life things (death of loved ones, sick kids, sober vacations, family stress, and more).
They too, are exhausted with the mindless acceptance of alcohol dependence and the constant drinking comments. They too, roll their eyes when the server shoves the drink menu at us even after we say “no thank you.” They too, know the awkwardness of meeting someone new and having to “come out” that you don’t drink. There’s an unspoken understanding and support and it feels so good to be seen (IRL).
Never Having a Hangover is Epic. I’m not getting any younger. There are days when I wake up and my neck is stiff, I didn’t sleep well, perimenopause or PMDD are putting me over the edge, I have a stuffy nose, I’m achey all over, or I just don’t feel right. Even in sobriety some days are hard. I’m so thankful that I don’t also have a hangover.
Hangovers are bullshit. I really can’t believe that there was a time when I thought they were worth it. My mental and physical health are a priority. How I take care of myself and show up for myself are the two things that I can control in this unpredictable life. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I finally got that figured out. I will never again forsake my health for a few hours of misunderstood and perceived “fun.”
Alcohol is Becoming More Deadly. 1 in 10 adults will die an alcohol related death. Since Covid, that number is rising. I’m currently working on an exciting project where I’m teaching teens to identify the role that media plays in their decision making around alcohol. It’s no surprise that shows, commercials, memes, ads, songs, and more persuade young people to drink alcohol. Drinking is both normalized and celebrated despite the fact that it’s more deadly than heroine. Studies show that the earlier a person drinks the more likely they are to become addicted and therefore get sick from an alcohol related illness (think everything from cancer to alcoholism). Yet, we are still STILL consuming massive amounts of alcohol with zero effort in getting companies to add warning labels to the bottles.
I love to use the term informed consent. When I was getting drunk and caring for my young children I was not informed that alcohol could cause me to have cancer or that it was increasing my debilitating anxiety. That wasn’t a lack of research on my part. It was a lack of evidence, research, and information which brings me to my next point.
Alcohol is a Scam! (Is it starting to sound like I’m becoming more heated? Because I am becoming more heated). I just did a quick google search and here are some ads that I discovered: Weekends Are For Bourbon, Endless Opportunties (and a pic of Bud Light), You Saw Your Girlfriend on Tinder (and a pic of a high ABV beer), Absolut Pride (picture of rainbow vodka bottle), Reach for Greatness (Guiness bottle), I’ll just stop there. When I ask people or research why people drink they tell me to have more fun, to reduce stress, to connect, to make friends.
Do we really believe that? Or, did the ads tell us that? I go into major detail of this in both of my workshops so I’ll spare all of it here. But, we are being duped! Alcohol does not make weekends. It does not induce gay pride. It does not reduce stress (like not at all-this is the biggest lie of all). It does not make us great.
When We Are Numb We Are Useless. I lived in a numb state for many years. Actually, I wavered in between numb and anxious. In those two states I was a shell of a human. I didn’t know what I wanted, what I needed, what my family needed, what my community needed. Sure, I tried things out, but nothing really ever stuck. I just couldn’t progress or move forward in any way. I was stuck. As long as I was drinking no healing could take place. My body just didn’t have the capacity. Without removing the alcohol I wasn’t going to be able to clear on what I needed to do.
Sure, I still have plenty of issues without alcohol in my life….but it’s manageable. Drinking disrupts every natural system in body. So when you consume alcohol your organs go to work to detox your body from what it perceives as poison. That means everything from my liver to my brain were focused on the alcohol in my system. They couldn’t do their very imperative jobs. No diet, medication, skill, or strategy was able to be successful because the alcohol in my system would always take first priority. And, it takes weeks if not months, for alcohol to completely clear itself from your body. So, even when I took a few days off, I didn’t stand a chance of making sustainable change toward the life that I wanted.
Alcohol is Dying (in some spaces). While alcohol is still very deadly and causing major issues for women and children specifically, in some cases, it’s losing it’s popularity. Everyday there is more information about how harmful alcohol can be to our bodies. Finally, it’s not just about addiction. Major influeners like Andrew Huberman, Rich Roll, Breńe Brown, and Jack Harlow are talking about the side effects of alcohol aside from addiction. Some Tik Tok videos, podcasts, music videos, and other media (while still not mainstream) are at least making an effort to bring this into the light. This new article is highlighting how other countries are viewing alcohol and giving it the warning labels and clear guidelines that it deserves. I hope that before long, we will feel about drinking like we feel about smoking. Everyone will know it’s not good for us. Doctors will suggest that we stop (instead of start like a nurse once told me), therapists will make it part of their regular assessment with people with depression and anxiety, medication labels will say “do not use if you are consuming alcohol,” breast cancer galas will stop auctioning off bottles of bourbon (one of the very things that can cause breast cancer).
People will absoutely still drink. It is their right to do so. Just like people still smoke (I was one of those people for a long time). But, they will do so with informed consent. They will make the choice fully knowing the outcomes that it can cause. They can choose to ignore because they will be educated and informed not duped and gas lighted like we are now. The day is coming and I’m just hoping it gets here sooner rather than later.