In the picture above I'm with two of my best sober friends, Laurie (middle) and Holly (right).
When I first went alcohol-free back in 2013, I found it really, really hard to find my people. I had two family members who didn't drink, so that was great, but all of my friends were still drinkers. I went to recovery meetings, but didn't find my people there, even though I met loads of lovely humans.
I made lots of online sober friends in the first year, but I was over a year sober before I met any in real life. Even though a fifth of Brits are now teetotal, I just couldn't seem to locate them.
Having sober friends is a game-changer, because quitting alcohol in our alcohol-centric society is hard in the beginning. Until you get used to socialising sober, you feel socially clunky. People try to push you back into drinking. You've grown accustomed to using alcohol to de-clench after a working day. You're breaking a cycle of many years. You feel lonely, in your non-drinking. For me, I'd been drinking for 21 years (from age 12 to age 33), so it's no wonder I found it challenging to go alcohol-free.
