The Best New Sober Blogs

I'm really not exaggerating when I say that blogging saved my life.

I'd tried to quit drinking many times before, and I'd kept it up for a week or two, sometimes whole months, but eventually I'd end up back where I started. Usually worse than where I'd started.

I'm often asked what made the difference this time, and the answer is simple: blogging. Here's why:

Community

In Johann Hari's amazing TED talk titled 'Everything you thought you knew about addiction is wrong' he says that the opposite of addiction is connection. It's finding a group of people who understand what you're going through and can support you and guide you that makes the difference.

In the dark days, when I was desperate for a drink, and when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, that community held out its hand and saved me.

Giving back

Alcoholics Anonymous have 'giving back' as one of their twelve steps. Helping other people in the way that you've been helped is good for the soul. It also helps to remind you where you've been and to feel grateful for where you are, and gratitude is crucial for good mental health.

Blogging is a great way of giving back.

Mindfulness

We all know that mindfulness is a really good thing, but it's really difficult for we addicts, because we often have what's known as monkey brain. Overactive minds that just won't shut up - that's why we drank, for the dimmer switch that alcohol provides. It also makes things like meditation really, really difficult.

However, blogging, or any form of reading or writing, is a great way of practising mindfulness, and of keeping your thoughts in the moment.

Therapy

Therapists often prescribe 'journalling' as a way of aiding recovery. Writing down what you're going through and how you're feeling on a daily basis is a great way of understanding where yourself and your issues.

Remembering

One of the main reasons for falling off the wagon is because you start feeling SO much better, and then you forget how bad it was. You forget why you're doing all this. You think maybe this time it will be different. Having a blog to remind you what it was really like and why you quit is really helpful for times like these.

I get lots of messages from people who've started sober blogs, and are finding it really therapeutic, but finding readers initially is hard, particularly if you want to stay anonymous and don't want to share your blog posts on social media.

Often, by the time people have found them, they've been sober for a year already, and those readers are missing out on helping the writer through the hardest, early days.

That's why I'm writing this.

If you have recently started a sober blog, or podcast, or YouTube channel and you would like people to find you then please leave a few lines about your 'thing' and your web address in the comments below.

Also, if you have recently come across a brilliant new blog, or podcast or whatever, then please recommend it below.

If you've recently quit drinking, or want to do so, then check out the recommendations below for some new virtual friends, who are going through exactly what you are. You can help each other.

I will share this post on all the SoberMummy Facebook page, and will add it to the pages at the top of my blog, so it's always accessible if you're wanting to promote or to read.

If you get a chance to share this post too, then please do. Let's all help each other, spread the word and the love.

And if you'd like to know more about my first year blogging my way through going sober, you can read The Sober Diaries. Available from Amazon here (UK) and here (USA).

Love to you all,

SM x

Sober Props

Everybody needs a few props when they quit drinking.

We need things to keep our monkey brains occupied, we need new rituals, and we need something to do with our hands.

I spent a lot of time looking at my hands in the early days, thinking what are you for?

My hands had spent the whole of my twenties taking cigarettes out of their packet (turning the first one filter end up for luck. Anyone else?), lighting them, smoking them, waving them around for emphasis, then stubbing them out.

Then I quit smoking and, funnily enough, the drinking ramped up as my itchy hands opened bottles, poured wine out and sipped endlessly from glasses.

It's not surprising that not drinking creates a vacuum.

That's why props are so helpful - just make sure that they're not also addictive! Avoid nicotine and other narcotics, gambling and shopping, for example....

Here are my favourite sober props:

1. Hot chocolate.

It has, as I've said elsewhere on this blog, magical powers, and it got me through many an evening in the early days.

There's a lovely ritual involved in making it (warming, spooning, stirring), something comforting about drinking it and a welcome sugar hit.

Hot chocolate reminds us of our childhoods - of simpler days before the Wine Witch stuck her broom handle into our lives. We can wrap our idle hands around the warm mug and it'll hug us right back. A hug in a mug.

2. Becks Blue (and other AF drinks).

Everyone has their own favourite AF drinks. The trick is to find something as reminiscent of 'proper' adult drinks as possible, without triggering a craving.

Becks Blue works for me because I was never a beer drinker. AF wine, however, just makes me yearn for the real thing (and tastes ghastly).

On really tough days (like when I was going through the cancer thing) Becks Blue got me through. It seemed to trick my sub conscious into relaxing just a little bit - enough to stop me reaching for the Real Thing.

Other personal favourites include virgin mojitos and virgin Mary's.

3. Cake (and other forms of refined sugar)

Everyone seems to crave sugar when they quit, and cake - or chocolate - is a great reward for getting through another 'one day at a time.' So do it. You can worry about the weight later. Baby steps.

4. Blogging

One of my favourite props. It keeps your hands busy, your mind busy, plus it helps you work through all the emotional STUFF that comes with getting sober.

Writing a journal does the same thing, if you don't want to go public, but if you blog you'll create your own support group, and help other people along the way.

(See my post: Blogging Saved my Life).

The problem with props is we, being natural addicts and all or nothing types, worry that the props themselves will get out of control.

Well, I'm now EXACTLY fifteen months sober, and I've realised that the props are gradually assuming less of a role in my life. I seem to be naturally phasing them out.

(If only I'd been able to do that with the vino!)

Magical hot chocolate? Around six months ago I replaced it with green tea. Still warming, still a ritual, but also really good for you.

Becks Blue? I still love it, but I drink - on average - one a day, as opposed to the SIX I drank on the day I got the cancer diagnosis.

Cake? Still a vital food group, but once or twice a week, not every day.

And blogging?

I still can't imagine life without it BUT I'm managing to keep it down to four or five posts a week rather than seven, which means that I have more time to focus on doing something that might earn me some much needed cash....

So the other great thing about sober props is they provide a really useful barometer as to how you're doing. The less you need them, the 'better' you are.

Love to you all, with hot chocolate and cake thrown in,

SM X

Sober Blogging Community

When I started writing this blog, I didn't realise how much camaraderie existed between the sober bloggers around the world, and with those readers who comment frequently.

I thought blogging would be much like writing a diary - just one that strangers can read too.

Actually, it's like being part of a huge global family, but one where everyone understands each other, and there are no secrets (so not like any real family then).

That's what makes it so hard when people disappear. In a real life family you could pop over and bang on the front door until they open up. Failing all else you can send the police round.

All we can do with disappearing bloggers is leave a message on their blog expressing concern and sending love. And disappearing readers can't be contacted at all.

I always hope they've just got bored with all this thinking about not drinking, and have swanned off into the sunset, clutching their virgin mojitos in one hand and a lush toy boy in the other.

I always suspect they're back to downing endless glasses of wine, and not wanting to feel any more guilty than they already do.

I hope they know that if and when they do come back they will be welcomed by all of us with open arms and absolutely no judgement. We've all been there, or if not there exactly then somewhere. We all have our baggage and our demons.

I was thinking about this because yesterday I had a lovely e-mail from a lady asking if I knew what had happened to Daisy H (Sober Girl, Wife and Mum).

I do have 'offline' (e-mail) relationships with quite a few of the other sober bloggers, but not Daisy, who has not posted since December 22nd.

Does anyone know how Daisy is?

Also missing in action is Bea of Be Sober Bea. Last posted two months ago, and has closed down her blog. Exploring Something Else - gone quiet for four months. And two of my early and favourite readers - Kags and Tallaxo. Where are you now?

If any of you are reading this, then please comment below, just to let us know how you are and if you need help.

If you're missing anyone else then please add their names, in case we can find them again too, or at least let them know we're thinking of them (should they find this page).

One of the bloggers I correspond with is Annie (A Dappled Path). We're meeting up tomorrow for the first time. Under a clock in a train station, just like a Hollywood movie.

So, if you see two middle aged ladies at a station hugging, but looking a little awkward, that'll be us. I'm telling you all so that she can't back out. I know what she's like....

Love to you all

SM x

Connection

I wouldn't be sober now if it weren't for the internet.

Maybe some people can do this completely on their own, but it can't be easy.

Johann Hari's Tedd talk on addiction (for more, see my post here) concludes with the words the opposite of addiction is connection. And connection is what AA have provided for alcoholics the world over, and what the sobersphere gives us today.

The reason I think connection is so crucial is that it is so very easy for us to give up on ourselves, to push the self destruct button in a moment of stress, fear, boredom or raging hormones. We're used to letting ourselves down, after all.

But, the more connections we have the more difficult it becomes to activate the ejector seat. Because we're letting down other people too. Our children. Our partners. Our AA sponsor. Our sobersphere buddies. And all of them have their hands out ready to catch us when we're falling.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I picture all of us round the world - so different in terms of culture, background and circumstance, but utterly united by common fears, experiences, hopes and dreams. It makes the world seem smaller, and our reach across it so much broader.

I remember feeling the same when I had my first baby. Buoyed up by all that serotonin and oxytocin, I felt 'at one' with all the other new mothers around the world.

Then the sleep deprivation kicked in, and I began to realise that mothers spend an awful lot of time criticising each other rather than supporting each other.

The sobersphere, however, is generally a really warm and accepting place. We look for similarities rather than differences, and we know (from bitter experience) that no-one is perfect.

We find the sober community when we're looking for help, then we hang around to give back. It's twenty first century karma.

Which is why I've found the news this week so shocking.

Fort McMurray in Canada has been burning for days. All 88,000 inhabitants have been evacuated. 1,600 of their homes, shops, schools and offices have been reduced to cinders.

In the old days I would have seen this news and felt a fleeting compassion for the people affected, then been jolly glad that I was okay, and carried on with my day.

But now I don't just see nameless strangers, I think of all those women like us. Women wrestling with all the day to day challenges of home, family and work, and dealing with issues like addiction, divorce, redundancy and so on. And now....facing this biblical style disaster.

And most of all I think of Anne and her family who live in Fort McMurray. Anne who has inspired all of us in the sobersphere by sharing her life, hopes and dreams (see her blog here) for the past two years. Anne who is safe, but must be dealing with the most unimaginable situation.

So, please send your love and strength to Anne. And Anne, if you find this post, point us in the direction of a funsdraising page so that your virtual community can do something to help rebuild your real one.

Love SM x