The Next Round: What happens after you change your drinking?

From Secret Drinker to Sober Mummy – The Sober Diaries by Clare Pooley

March 5, 2018
Clare Pooley

On this guest webinar “Sober Mummy” Clare Pooley, author of The Sober Diaries book and the blog Mummy was a Secret Drinker talks about her first 1,000 days sober, and how it’s changed her life.

I quit drinking on 2nd March 2015, so this is my three year soberversary. It seems like a great time to talk about how going sober has transformed my life, and the changes I discovered in the first year (which is detailed in my book The Sober Diaries), but then also how the benefits kept coming in year 2 and 3. I’ll talk about the reasons I decided to quit – the insomnia, anxiety, self-hatred, the wine belly and – crucially – my children. I’ll discuss why I think (after many failed attempts) this time it worked – changing the way you think about booze, being excited not scared, blogging and REALLY KNOWING that moderation isn’t an option.

I discuss the first 100 days – the importance of community (like Club Soda), the ‘tool box’ to help get through cravings and deal with ‘wine o’clock’, socialising and dealing with other people, taking one day at a time… I’ll talk about how for me, and many people, things get easier after 100 days. My anxiety lessened, I had more energy, less belly, I felt like a much better mother – more patient and more present, and I slept like a baby. I started to be able to think about ‘forever’… …then I got cancer.

I talk about how grateful I am that I was sober before my diagnosis, and how different things might have been. I’d have probably ignored the lump, at least for a while, and I’d have fallen apart in front of my children. We think that alcohol helps when we’re going through a traumatic time, but actually being sober makes you so much stronger and more able to cope. I’d imagined that year 2 and 3 sober would just be ‘more of the same’, but I was wrong.

I discuss the changes I noticed in year 2 – how I lost my fear of ‘coming out’ as alcohol-free, how I felt so much more creative, so much braver and how my world got so much bigger. I also felt this need to ‘give back’ which is so fundamental to AA.

And, finally, I answer your questions…