My local supermarket has stacked bottles of pink fizz near the entrance. The restaurant next door is offering a special, boozy dinner deal. And across the road, the florist is getting ready to deliver eye-wateringly expensive champagne…

I used to love the buzz I got from alcohol. I was hooked on the sugary rush those first few drinks delivered; they seemed to give me a boost. They made me feel good… for a while. When I was drinking, it was hard to imagine that anything else…

Laura writes: “I struggled with my drinking last year and rarely went more than a few days without caving in. But after Christmas my husband and I decided we’d have a dry January – and to my surprise, I’ve stuck at it. I’m really proud…

We’re two weeks into 2017 and you know what that means: it’s make or break time for your New Year’s resolutions. Statistically, this is the week when many of us will decide to give up on our goals. We all know what it’s like…

When I was struggling with my drinking, I couldn’t get my head around the idea of a sober Christmas and New Year. Booze is such a big part of the festive season, and I was totally convinced that alcohol-free meant fun-free. There was…

If you’re newly sober – or trying to be – then the chances are, you find this time of year a bit stressful. There are parties to navigate, family pressures to deal with and lots of boozy marketing messages all over the place. When you’re one of…

Christmas is just around the corner and we are officially in party season. I’ve noticed some magazines also call this time of year ‘hangover season’, which would explain the sudden rush of articles with headlines like…

“It’s been a stressful day. I want a drink!” We’ve all heard other people say they need a few drinks to unwind, and the chances are we’ve also said it ourselves. The idea of drinking away our stress is very well established in…

It can be really tough if your friends and family don’t understand why you want to quit, or worse still, they try and convince you not to bother. In early sobriety, mastering alcohol-free living is challenging enough without the added…

“I want to quit drinking but I’m not sure this is the right time…” I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve heard say that. I know I said it countless times. Once I’d decided I needed to stop drinking, the next big decision was when. And the more…

Here’s a quick question for you to ponder: would you ever give alcohol to a child? No? What if they were upset? Or needed cheering up? Or they were anxious about something? Or just a bit lonely? Still no? Phew. I thought that’s what…

Before I stopped drinking, I thought I knew what alcohol-free living would be like. I was convinced that sobriety was going to be as boring as hell. Alcohol seemed to be the thing that made everything sparkle. It turned bad nights into…