Sobering Up
Firstly, this project needs an introduction to contextualise it. This Autumn I decided to try going sober for 5 weeks - not a difficult feat for some, but having been a social drinker for years, this would be the longest I’d been completely without alcohol since I can remember. I began talking to people about sobriety, researching more into it, and slowly discovered how many people in my social circles were either sober curious like me, or already ‘sober’ (I use this word lightly, because I’ve found it can be quite subjective, and doesn’t have to necessarily imply 100% abstinence). In having these discussions, I decided to embark on a photojournalistic project to tell some of these friends’ stories, photographing them in locations that felt particularly poignant to them in their journey. My first subject is Rosy (@revoltingrosy), who I’ve known for several years through the London events scene.
Rosy: “It's been almost 3 years since I stopped drinking, and a year and a half since I cut out caffeine. Before this, I'd do one or two sober months a year. It's very easy, especially when working in the events industry, for partying to become your lifestyle, so I always liked to periodically check I had a handle on things, and could still do my job, see my friends and operate in society whilst sober. Three years ago, I was having a particularly intense time during one of these 'months off': I had a lot of responsibility at work, I got mugged, and I think most significantly, I found out that my dad was dying. That was such a huge, important thing to try and navigate, and something in me just wanted to try and do it with as clear a head as possible, to be as present with it as I could. So I made a pact with myself to stay sober until he passed away, and once that happened, it felt right to continue because that grief was still such a vast, intangible thing to process. After a while, I kind of came to the conclusion that - for now at least, maybe not forever - I'd lost my taste for alcohol, and so I've stayed off it. It's been sort of a prolonged experiment in sobriety now, that's gone on much longer than originally intended.”
“I chose to meet at Lloyd Park in Walthamstow as it was one of the nearest green spaces to me during the second year of lockdown, and where I spent a lot of time in the earlier stages of my sobriety. It was a period when I was processing a lot - so much had changed in all of our lives, and I was dealing with losing not only my dad, but also one of my best friends who died just under a year later.
While I’d not say my relationship with alcohol has ever been massively detrimental to my life, I'm sure - like many people - I used to drink 'too much', according to guidelines, which obviously can’t have been good for my health. I'd lose days to being hungover, and probably used it as a crutch at gigs and in social situations.
Since going sober, I think I’m kinder to myself. I'm more in touch with how my body, head and heart feel, and more attentive to those things, rather than bulldozing myself through things that didn't feel good, or pushing beyond exhaustion. I used to hit burnout a lot and then carry on. Now, I feel more grounded and steady in myself, I spend less time oscillating between extreme highs and lows, and more time trying to cultivate a feeling of contentment, which maybe isn't as exciting but I think it feels good. I have more trust in myself, in my capacity to hold big, difficult things without needing to pull away or trying to numb them. I'm less wild and loud, I party less, though I've found I can still keep up with my friends if I want to. I probably need more quiet time to recharge on my own, but I love waking up in the morning without a hangover. Though I may sometimes notice my anxiety more in social situations now, I don’t find myself instinctively reaching towards alcohol as a crutch.
Most of the time I don't even tell people at work or parties that I'm not drinking, because it saves having to have a conversation about it over and over again, and most of the time, people don't notice."
“My advice to anyone who might be sober curious or struggling with drugs/alcohol would be this: If the pressure to make big life decisions about sobriety feels too much, treat it like an experiment, just something you're trying for a short amount of time, and then review it and see how you feel and if you want to carry on. Learn to listen to what actually feels good for your body, heart and mind rather than doing things on autopilot or because it's a habit, or everyone else is. Find things that you really enjoy doing sober, and work out which people are easy to be around when you are. Let yourself be changed by it, maybe some parts of you might drop away, but that makes space for other things within you to emerge. Be gentle, kind, patient, and compassionate with yourself, however things are going. It's a funny old world we live in, both a difficult and miraculous one, and whatever terrain you've crossed to get you where you are, all things considered, you're probably doing incredibly well.”
If you are struggling with alcoholism or addiction, don’t be afraid to talk about it. There is no shame in taking the first step towards your recovery.
