John - 571 days

“There is an unexpected and joyful lightness that has developed for me after eliminating alcohol from my life. Having removed the heavy and complex burden of “should I/shouldn’t I” drink, this should have been an obvious change, but it has taken me by surprise.

It’s a clear sense of being that allows me to now navigate with clarity and confidence, even through the challenging times that still of course exist but that are now faced head-on without the numbing hindrance of wine. I can honestly say that without drinking, everything that I encounter both at work and in my personal life feels achievable.

This lightness is also one that I can count in kilograms. I have started to care for my body, choosing walking over the car, swimming and Pilates instead of Rioja. I suppose that what I’m talking about is the emergence of an unobstructed authenticity, a new ‘realness’ if you like that was previously being held back. And with lightness comes strength, both of body and mind, it’s a fantastic, peaceful place to be, somewhere that I couldn’t have imagined being in a previous life…

For many years I had considered wine integral to my existence, that it made me likeable, funny, wild. I now know that it did nothing of the sort because I can be all of those things and more without it. It took me two attempts to completely knock it on the head, I went a full year without and congratulated myself with a slow return to steady drinking.

That first experience really helped me understand a) how easy it actually was for me to not drink for a sustained period of time and b) how easy it was for me to return to drink over a very short period of time; so this time around I can safely say that I am done, the benefits of not drinking are just far too good.”