Some people are all-or-nothing. I’m one of them.
Why have one chocolate Hobnob when you can finish the entire packet? A light jog? No thanks, 5km or nothing. Loving so intensely you lose yourself in it? Wrap me in the toxicity. One glass of wine or the bottle with a straw? I think you get the idea.
Later this year, I will celebrate seven years of sobriety. It still baffles me to write that because, in all honesty, I never dreamed it was possible.
April 2025 |
9 minutes
Alcohol Change UK Ambassador and Proud and Sober Community founder, Scott Pearson, is passionate about making safe and inclusive spaces for those who are alcohol-free in the LGBTQ+ community. Scott decided to become alcohol-free around seven years ago, feeling trapped in a binge cycle. He shares his experiences, as well as his methods for ‘rewiring’ that illusive off switch.
“At my worst, I was drinking two or three bottles of red wine per night. I remember being out for drinks with friends and noticing that I was always the first to finish.”
Ten years ago, I was in the deepest, darkest part of my relationship with alcohol. Once I started drinking, I didn’t want to stop. I became Cady Heron - “the limit does not exist” (if you know, you know) . At my worst, I was drinking two or three bottles of red wine per night. I remember being out for drinks with friends and noticing that I was always the first to finish. At work events, I’d get too drunk and embarrass myself.
Aristotle once said that “pleasure in moderation is the bond of society.” He and I would not have been friends.
“I told myself that some people just aren’t built for moderation…”
The thing about being an all-or-nothing person is that you believe moderation is a myth. A fantastical concept, designed for people with an innate sense of balance. People who can have a single square of chocolate and put the rest of the bar away for later. People who leave half a pint of beer unfinished. Aliens, as far as I was concerned. I told myself that some people just aren’t built for moderation. We’re the ones who, if we can’t do it all the way, don’t do it at all.
“Stuck in a cycle of bingeing and shame, quitting and relapsing, promising myself I’d change, then proving myself wrong.”
That mindset had me stuck for years. Stuck in a cycle of bingeing and shame, quitting and relapsing, promising myself I’d change, then proving myself wrong. It wasn’t just drinking, either. I threw myself headfirst into everything - work, relationships, hobbies - until I burnt out or self-destructed. The irony was, I convinced myself that my extremes were what made me interesting. They gave me a personality. But in reality, they made me exhausted. To myself and to everyone around me.
I hit rock bottom in the way so many of us do - not with a dramatic intervention or a cinematic breakdown, but with a slow, creeping awareness that my life was unsustainable. The hangovers were unbearable. I was anxious all the time. I was spending money I didn’t have, ruining my health, and losing all sense of who I was. I wanted to change, but I didn’t know how.
“So, I did the only thing I understood: I quit. Completely. No moderation, no “cutting back,” no occasional glass of wine. Just gone.”
The first year of sobriety was brutal. I didn’t know how to socialise without alcohol. I didn’t know who I was without it. I had to reintroduce myself to myself - awkwardly, hesitantly, like a stranger at a dinner party I wasn’t sure I wanted to be at. But then, something strange happened.
“I started to realise that the qualities that made me a disastrous drinker - the intensity, the obsessiveness, the all-or-nothing attitude - could also be my greatest strengths. When I channelled them into something positive, they became discipline. Focus. Passion.”
I turned to running , and it made me fitter than I’d ever been. I threw myself into work and built a career I was proud of. I immersed myself in friendships and relationships that were healthy, built on real connection rather than drunken bonding over shots at 2am.
“And, perhaps most importantly, I learned that the “off switch” I thought I lacked wasn’t missing - it just needed rewiring.”
I didn’t have to get rid of my intensity. I just had to direct it somewhere useful.
Seven years on, I still have my moments. I still want to go all in, push things too far, devour life in a way that sometimes isn’t sustainable. But I’ve also learned to pause. To ask myself, “Is this serving me? Or am I just chasing the rush?”
“Turns out, moderation isn’t a myth. It’s a skill. One I’m still learning, but one that’s given me a life I never thought possible.”
And Aristotle? Maybe we wouldn’t have been best mates. But I think, in the end, we’d have found some common ground.
