How I Quit Drinking and Started Listening to My Body

Alcohol consumption spikes during the holiday season, with one poll finding a 100% increase between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The 2018 survey, conducted on behalf of supplement company Morning Recovery, found that an average respondent’s typical four drinks per week leapt to eight during that festive period. Still, if you stick around, the helping-others part almost always sinks in.

• At Club Söda (“sober or debating abstinence”), quitting drinking is not styled as a last-ditch way to address “incomprehensible demoralization,” as the soul’s dark night is known in AA, but as the royal road to bliss, focus, and deep connection.
• Not everyone wants or needs to join a support group to deal with their drinking problems.
• I went from D’s to A’s in my grades and found passion, purpose, and a calling.
• Allen said the app begins with a diagnostic assessment and encourages users to develop a plan for themselves every week, which may or may not be complete sobriety.

Finally, sober curiosity is driven by the desire to live a more authentic, meaningful or healthy life. Many people find that alcohol gets in the way of their ability to be fully present and engaged in their lives. By taking a break from alcohol, they are able inspirational stories of sobriety to experience life in a more authentic and meaningful way. We always believe that life hangs in the balance of taking care of yourself, being mindful of your wellness, but not restricting yourself in parts of your life that you enjoy, and that bring you joy.

What is a mindful drinking app?

This past weekend, Guest Contributor, Martha Wright attended her first Global Mindful Drinking Festival and made some exciting discoveries she wanted to share. Sign up today to receive our newsletters and enjoy free access to the latest digital edition of C&TH. Bainbridge is quick to point out that sober-curious culture and recovery are very different.

To cater to these newly temperate types—that is, to get those who decline to consume to keep consuming—sober-friendly bars have shot up like crocuses in New York, Denver, Miami, Austin, and San Francisco. Others feature extravagant mocktails alongside full bars. At these places, someone with a drink the color of rust or algae can generally pass as a habitué. Amid chic decor, mixologists lace soft drinks with sophistication-signifiers and wallet-declutterers like orgeat, tobacco syrup, and chinotto orange. Since then, an increasingly robust swath of people testing the zero-proof waters of sobriety has sworn off drink and joined the international reverse-rave known as Dry January. In 2013, Dry January launched as a branded public-health initiative in the UK, attracting some 4,000 people.

Give a little back in 2022: volunteering options for the new year

I could happily take part in social occasions without a glass of liquid confidence. Getting sober was an act of dissent for me as well, but with unintended consequences. When I decided to stop drinking, I felt like my identity was no longer stable. This isn’t an uncommon response; Davis-Timms says that “sobriety becomes an identity shift.” Reassessing my life without alcohol went deeper than what I drank – it shot straight to my inner core. Without alcohol and its drowning effects, parenting and work feel easier, and she’s able to enjoy life more.

Though research is limited, there’s some evidence that benefits may last beyond January. A University of Sussex study, for example, found that all Dry January participants were drinking less six months later, with greater reductions recorded for those who fully abstained for the month. “If you look at that long term and just look at the physiological changes, if people go back to drinking the same amount, those are kind of lost,” he said. That’s when 40-year-old Crawley decided to cut out alcohol for the first month of 2021. Though the bracing inventories of my own “defects of character” seem to keep me honest, some in the program who suffer with trauma see AA’s insistence that alcoholics are all sinners as victim-blaming.

Mind Your Drink: The Surprising Joy of Sobriety: Mindful Drinking

Very few topics of conversation are off-limits among my friends and alcohol was no exception. It was a part of the pre-trip planning conversation, mixed into group text messages about coordinating flights and booking the hotel. My friends knew that I was no longer drinking, and Claire called me from the https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/wet-mush-brain-from-alcoholism-symptoms-and-dangers/ Dominican Republic, where she was now living with her family, to gauge my comfort level with staying at an all-inclusive resort and the readily available supply of alcohol. You’re joining a community of members who have been through exactly what you’re going through, and have achieved amazing results.

Mindful drinking is an increasingly popular concept that encourages people to be mindful and mindful of their alcohol consumption. It focuses on being mindful of the amount of alcohol you are consuming, as well as what type of alcoholic beverage you are drinking. Mindful drinking has been adopted by generations spanning from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, and it is becoming more common as people become aware of the potential negative effects that excessive or irresponsible alcohol use can have on overall health.

We aim to explore the concept of sober curiosity without judgment and help you find ways to experiment with this movement if it’s something you’ve been thinking about this year. But for those already connected to a higher power, Warde’s work could offer comfort and guidance. But sober curiosity doesn’t work for everyone, especially for those with alcohol use disorder. Unlike sobriety, being sober curious can include drinking on occasion.