Ben ~ 67 days

“3 years ago, I quit my job and moved to the Alps after falling in love with skiing on my first trip to the mountains. Although I was so excited to go, I was severely debating making the jump after a really bad spell of health anxiety a few years before. I was terrified of entering into a party environment for 5 months and had a lot of back-and-forth’s with myself, but I eventually decided on the no-holds-barred approach and jumped straight into the work-hard, play-hard lifestyle, with hopes of trying to ignore it.

Over the last decade or so, I’d drank heavily since I was 18. This latest combination of incredible scenery and brand new faces felt like a continuation of seeking an escape from reality, just in a new place with more snow. It wasn’t until I tried to return for my next season that I found this same anxiety from before returning again. Every winter, this awful dread would come back and my health anxiety would spike, and as much as I tried to battle it with the distraction of drinking, I found that it just made it worse. I would often think about quitting after feeling worried and guilty about the effect bingeing had on me, but I kept talking myself back into the same negative pattern by choosing the path of least resistance.

Fast-forward to 2024, and it got me thinking that I could surely find a way to enjoy the magic of the mountains without needing to put my mind and body through the yo-yo’ing of abusing alcohol, so I decided to launch SoberSki, an alcohol-free ski brand centred around sober living and 0% ski trips.

I committed to doing Dry January in a ski resort to prove to others that it can be done, so I thought I’d give myself a head start and quit at the start of December. This was the first winter in easily the last 5 years where I felt like I was trying for a positive reason instead of a crippling negative one. The more I told people about SoberSki and my reasons for creating it, the more incredible conversations I started to have. By embarking on a public sober mission of my own, I found that lots people I knew actually aspired to stint of sobriety too, or were at least considering having less to drink.

Since stopping, I’ve found that my willpower has increased tenfold, my general stress and anxiety has reduced, and it’s given me the space to set higher standards for myself to reach my full potential. With no more hangovers to blame for not acting on what I said I’d do the night before in the pub, it’s been so much easier to follow through.

My memory has definitely improved too, and living a less chaotic life has given me the confidence to trust my own judgement more than I did before, knowing I’ve got a clearer mind to make more positive choices, and more importantly, avoid the guilt and stress of making less mistakes!

I haven’t set an end date to this experiment, but right now, I really don’t see a way back in for alcohol. I’ve never been more focused and curious to find out what I'm really capable of without getting in my own way all the time, and I’d love to encourage you to ask yourself the same question!”