Fitness
5 Women Reveal What They Did To Get Sober
They prove that it IS possible.
Naomi Elliott
Getting sober is no easy feat: About 30 percent of people attempting sobriety relapse during that first year, according to a study of 1,200 people who tried to quit. But it is possible. We interviewed five alcoholics who have been there, done that . . . and kept doing it. Here are their tricks and tips.
Use an app
Barbara Face was drinking up to two bottles of wine daily when a blood test revealed drastic changes for the worse. Face, who is retired and lives in Phoenix, said that the hardest part of quitting for her was changing her daily routine. “I was in the habit of starting drinking at a certain time of the day and without food,” she said. “Also, I live alone, and the lack of companionship made it more difficult.” So she downloaded an app called Reframe, which provides a science-based method for cutting back — plus live video meetings hosted by licensed coaches. With help from the app, Face slowly cut back and began adding alcohol-free days. Renewing her commitment each morning made her afternoon drinking routine easier, because she had already made the decision each morning while she was fresh. “Decision fatigue can impede progress, so making the decision in the morning gave me the wherewithal to succeed in the afternoon,” Face said. She is nearly two years sober.
It’s a mental game
Holly Jespersen, a 51-year-old woman in Darien, Conn., was able to quit drinking entirely only when she realized that it is, in her opinion, 90 percent mental. So she needed to teach her brain to think about drinking differently. The trick? Going to meetings . . . constantly. “Being in a community with like-minded people, seeing and hearing how people handle things like losing a parent, a job, getting a cancer diagnosis and handling it with grace and dignity and not needing to drink — I have learned that there is nothing I cannot handle in life.” After drinking since the age of 14, Jespersen, a senior communications manager, had to learn basic things like self-care, boundaries, and what real friendships and relationships look like.
Understand your why
Sobriety initially failed for Christine Gold because she was trying to hold everything inside a dysregulated body. So the 52-year-old psychic medium, somatic coach and founder of Soul Healers Sanctuary in Calgary, Canada, used breath-work and simple somatic tools like meditation and grounding exercises to help calm her cravings instead of fighting them. She also named the real reason she was drinking. “For me,” she said, “it wasn’t the alcohol, it was the over-functioning, masking, and the exhaustion of holding everything together.” Once she was honest with herself, she was able to take alcohol out of the equation. She stopped white-knuckling and instead, joined a sober community with other women, replacing drinking with sparkling water, breath and movement.
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Distract, distract, distract
Like many others, alcohol came with a big price for Mary Alice Stephens, author of Uncorked: A Memoir of Letting Go and Starting Over: Injuries, blackouts, hangovers, shame and remorse. After blacking out in front of her children, Stephens finally scared herself enough to realize she had to quit. In early sobriety, she said, she needed to keep herself distracted and her hands busy, especially during peak trigger periods, which for her were making and eating dinner, getting through the kids’ witching hour and relaxing after they went to bed. So Stephens, who is 60 and quit when she was 45, got rid of the alcohol, went to therapy and bought plenty of jigsaw puzzles and books to keep her distracted. When socializing, she’d arrive late with a nonalcoholic drink housed in a glass, and she’d leave early. She avoided white-tablecloth restaurants where the focus was on wine and cocktails, and instead opted for casual ethnic eateries that served food with bold flavors. Still, it’s not easy. “Long-term sobriety still requires nurturing, and I do so by listening to and participating in sobriety podcasts, engaging with sober social media accounts and attending the occasional AA meeting with my sober friends.”
Being honest
Jessica Lahey got blackout drunk at her mother’s birthday party, and she finally realized that she needed to stop. Her marriage, her job and ultimately her life, were at stake. The hardest part for her was the shame. “I was so ashamed of my actions, I was avoiding the people I’d harmed, and I would lay awake at night trying to figure out how I’d ever be able to ask for forgiveness,” said the Burlington-based author and speaker. But being honest about her substance use disorder is what ultimately helped Lahey with her sobriety. “Everyone whose opinion mattered to me already knew,” she said. “Being publicly open about my sobriety has allowed me to not only stay sober myself, but to help other people, and I’m incredibly grateful for all of it,” Lahey said.
Have any of you successfully stopped drinking? Let us know in the comments below.
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