As many celebrate the New Year, I am happy to inform you that I am well over a year sober from alcohol use. My intention to quit was set 1.5 years before my actual quit day. I became sober without hospitalization, pills, or rehabilitation. Those 1.5 years were full of ups and downs, relapses, guilt, and soul searching. It was pure willpower and I believe I had assistance from the Universe to push me to the next level of healing.

Sobriety changes your relationships, where you socialize, and allows you to focus your time on the things that matter most for your personal growth. Clarity is the greatest gift of sober living from any substance abuse.

People with mental health conditions do not need to subject themselves to more anxiety and depression by excessively using alcohol, marijuana, prescription pills, nicotine, and a plethora of other substances. If you take medications for your disability, your brain chemistry can be impaired. All things in moderation as they say.

There is some shadow work that can take years of talk or psychotherapy to uncover the root cause of a person’s choice to excessively use substances. Make the appointment with the therapist; choose to love your body. Some have genetic predispositions, some have trauma, some have no tools for coping, some want to escape. The hard truth is that many of us are hurting emotionally or physically.

I highly encourage making an effort to have a clean body. I am addicted to gummy bears (not CBD, the real ones with sugar). What they don’t tell you about being alcohol free is that your body craves more sugar. I drank so much sweet tea that I realized a sugar withdrawal headache was far worse than any alcohol craving I’d ever encountered. We are not perfect and have our vices. My 2024 resolution will consist of a nutritionist consult and a household ban of gummy bears and sweet tea!

If you do not feel comfortable attending AA, there is a SMART Recovery group. Everyday is a new day and try not to guilt yourself through the process. Restart and repeat your sobriety one day at a time. Find new hobbies and friends along the way!