Nine years, no beers!: How I Stayed Sober (and Mostly Sane)

A nine year performance review of me, sobriety, and the universe.

Repurposed author illustration

Nine years feels like a lifetime in which so much has happened, and also like no time at all. No wonder I have no concept of time - it’s clearly an entirely meaningless concept! It’s strange looking back on the person I was in 2016, just starting out on this path, with no real sense of where it would lead — just a great hope that it might lead somewhere that felt better.

So join me as I wonder, live, whether or not it actually did…

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2016 — My first year sober. I didn’t really believe I was an ‘alcoholic’ but I was sick of what alcohol was doing to my life, and I found that identifying as an alcoholic was the only way I could stay sober for any extended period.

I published my difficult second novel! (But somehow still felt like a giant loser.)

I went to dozens of AA meetings, made some sober friends, got a kitten (Ted, my firstborn furry son <3) started a course in permaculture, and ended a long-term relationship because now I wasn’t drinking, their problematic drinking was even more heartbreaking and unbearable.

At some point that year, I met T, and we became friendly-ish, saying hello to each other at meetings. I nursed a crush but mostly tried to ignore it. (“Don’t shit where you eat,” my legendary sponsor said to me.) And I tried not to, I really did!

BUT on the last night of the year, he asked me out. We were at a sober New Year’s Eve party, my first sober new year’s eve. I felt awkward and weirded out by all the changes in my life. T asked if he could walk me home and we walked through the streets of Bristol, talking, I suppose, and then at mine, we drank a chamomile tea in my flat, sitting cross-legged in front of my first-ever solo Christmas tree.

That night, after he left - with a kiss on the cheek or maybe just a hug - I remember lying on my bed in the dark, fizzing with excitement and hope about my future.

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2017 — Second year sober and I still felt extremely anxious and often very depressed. To try and fix this, I quit academia (I taught one seminar a week on a zero-hours contract at Bath Spa) became a gardener and took an extremely expensive writing residency in the Arctic (where I sadly had a miserable time!)

I remember how grounding gardening felt - planting things, watching them grow. Proof that life keeps moving forward. My self-esteem grew along with my little green charges, and week by week, my faith that getting sober and making all the changes I had was a good thing blossomed.

But I was very sad about the past. All the dumb drunken stuff I’d done and relationships I’d neglected or damaged. The potential I’d wasted. I felt angry and envious of the women I knew who hadn’t struggled in the way I had, and I wanged on about all this in therapy and at meetings or with my new also healing-focused friends.

T moved into my flat and we created Chom’s Love Nest Emporium.

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2018 — Gardening was too hard in winter, so I got a job in a university library where T was studying Ancient History. I was still hiding a bit, trying to piece myself back together quietly, still unsure why I was really having to. What had even happened?

I was determined never to return to academia, which made me so anxious and exhausted. I’d become very aware of my volatile baseline mood, and had nicknamed it Good day, bad day, was worn out by the daily change from casual suicidality to semi-euphoria. I’d noticed, too, an intense tiredness that was mostly brought on by interacting with people. Even if I really liked them (which mostly I did.) I snuck off daily to have sleeps. Even the library - the gentlest, easiest job I’d ever had - exhausted me.

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2019 — My contract at the library ran out, and I interviewed for my job but didn’t get it. Cheeky! I applied for Universal Credit but didn’t get it, because of my freelance writer status (I was earning barely any money from writing by that point, but still, it discounted me). My dear friend N told me about a lecturer job in Falmouth and I applied, with a great reference from him, and I was genuinely astonished when I actually got it.

After much debate, I decided to take the risk and accept the job. Very impulsive and life-changing decision! T had graduated I think, and was training to be a social worker so he couldn’t move with me. He stayed in my flat with Ted, and I set off to live without them.

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2020 — Being a full-time lecturer was tough and I had anxiety sweats (T christened them mushroom sweats because there is a *particular* smell to my performance anxiety.) But Falmouth University, my colleagues and students were wonderful, and I *loved* having a regular salary.

My teaching load was high and difficult and I got burnt out, and had to be signed off, just before COVID struck. This triggered much soul-searching about why things had been so hard and still were though I’d made so many positive changes. Soon after I was diagnosed Autistic and ADHD.

These diagnoses shifted everything — suddenly so much of my past made sense.

We started IVF.

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2021 — My sixth year was brutal with occasional high points. My dad died suddenly and I didn’t get to say goodbye. I arranged his funeral. COVID meant it was small with no wake. A few of us stood in his garden and drank cans of Carling (well, tea, for me and T.)

We bought a house with a garden. I got a job in Bristol so was able to move back to be with T and Ted full-time. We got pregnant and were so happy, but then I had a miscarriage. We got another kitten.

It was the hardest year of my sobriety, but I didn’t drink. T and me spent most of the year in bed, and not in a sexy way.

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2022 — My seventh year sober. I got pregnant again, and we were nervous this time, and it paid off, because I had another miscarriage. We got a puppy. If we carried on like this, we would have to buy a bigger house, for all our pets.

And then, I got pregnant again. This time, we heard a heartbeat and saw a tiny foetus. We stayed anxious, unfortunately, neither of us able to trust we’d really have a baby. We didn’t buy anything for the longest time! I think I bought a babygro from the charity shop in about my 28th week.

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2023 — Paddy arrived!

Becoming a mother was the best most beautiful thing.

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2024 — I went back to work after nine months home with The Baby — and I finally, finally came to love my job!

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I’m so content in so many ways, even happy, though I know technically that isn’t a state. I have a much better understanding of how to live in a way that doesn’t make me want to top myself all the time. Hurray!

Nine years ago, I couldn’t have imagined any of this — the grief, joy, the steadiness underneath it all. I haven’t been drunk for nine years! There has been no shift in consciousness, just me, here, either asleep or awake. Okay, that’s probably an oversimplification. But maybe you know what I mean.

I’ve learned so much — about addiction and denial, autism and ADHD, but maybe most importantly about how to live without hating myself and being crippled by regret. I’ve learned how to be vulnerable and trust other people and trust myself.

Maybe that’s the biggest gift sobriety has given me — not just the life I’ve built, but the way I feel about living it. ❤️

So a reminder, in case you need it. If you think your drinking is a problem, it’s a problem. You don’t need anyone else to think it’s bad to quit. And who knows, you might find it suits you much better just not to have the option to get drunk anymore. I know that when I had the option, I took it waaaay too much.

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Chelsey Flood is the author of award-winning novels Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE. She is currently working on a book for Jessica Kingsley Publishers about the connection between undiagnosed neurodiversity and addiction + her first domestic noir.