Sober Snacks #1

Bite size tips & stories to help you not drink today. For the sober and sober curious looking for digestible, on-the-go sober-positive content. These are the stories and lifestyle tips of people who don’t drink. Enjoy :)

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When asked “what can I get you to drink?”, you say:

“Club soda and lime.”

During your sobriety, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?

My biggest mantra throughout my sobriety has been, “what you allow is what will continue”. Those words have been impactful in helping me to create positive changes in my life.

What is a myth that you’ve heard about sobriety? What’s your comeback/response to that myth?

That you won’t be funny anymore when you get sober. I have always been told that I am an animated storyteller. I’ve been told that I have a good sense of humor and I prided myself on that my whole life. I feared that I would lose that skill if it wasn’t boosted with alcohol. When I was drinking, I thought I was so funny and witty. Now I go back and watch old Snapchat videos and cringe! It’s terrible — someone should have told me to stop.

Also, I now have confidence in my humor and storytelling. I know I’m not boring or dulling because I’ve witnessed it with 100% sobriety and presence. Do you know what’s boring? Not being able to form a cohesive sentence. Do you know what’s dull? Being hungover. On the contrary, being sober is the most rewarding experience you give yourself — especially in your 20s!

Rose-all-day is not the way to go! You’re going to be sleepy, you’re going be angry, and you’re not going to remember that event and how it really happened.

Society tries to make us believe that fun is surrounded by alcohol like you’re not really having fun unless you’re drinking. That’s just not true.

I’ve had some of my most memorable, fun experiences sober. Honestly, things are so much better sober. If you’re 20s are supposed to be the time of your life, why not live it to its full potential?

Throughout your sobriety, what have you become better at saying no to?

My family! Specifically: family events. I had no boundaries with my family my whole life. I would say yes and suffer at events with people I don’t even like seeing because I felt obligated to say yes to every single invitation from my family. “I am supposed to say yes because they are family”, was a limiting and disempowering belief that I held on to for far too long. It made a lot of decisions for me.

Now I can tell people no and I don’t let people make me feel bad or worry about what other people will think about me. I realized that a lot of my family is stuck in their own addiction and their own problems. Most of the time I’m not talking to them, I’m talking to their addiction, so why should their addiction’s opinions about me bother me? The only opinion that is important to me at this point is my own. That has come from learning how to love myself for the first time. Loving myself has given me the ability to shut out all the other negativity that comes from others.

I’d be lying if I said that things don’t get under my skin sometimes — I’m a sensitive soul deep down. At the same time, I’m a lot more confident in my decisions to say no because I realized that what other people think of me is not as important as what I think about myself. At the end of the day, I know who I am and it’s someone I am proud of. That has been extremely liberating for me and, because of it, I’ve been able to form healthier relationships with my family. It’s been vital to my recovery.