Happy Soberversary to Tribe Member Ros!

 

I always love featuring a Tribe Member on the podcast but this week it’s particularly special as Tribe member Ros is celebrating her first Soberversary.

All of those Sober Firsts are important – the first time we socialize without alcohol, the first time we go on holiday.

Even Sober Packing (!) – it seems to be a thing for some of our members and of course, the Soberversary is a culmination of all of those Sober Firsts.

A whole year of sobriety is enough for most people to nail the “not drinking” part – and then to start reconfiguring their lives – creating a life they don’t want to escape from!

I often say that if we really want to stop drinking we have to throw the book at it – and Ros is a fantastic example of the results you get if you do that.

Ros had been drinking for decades and knew that she would have to make a change so she joined the Tribe.

She turned up on Day One – looking wobbly and tearful at our weekly Zoom Café.  She came to Zoom every single week and it was such a joy to see her getting stronger and looking happier as time went by.  Ros put the work in and as a result she only ever had One Day One.

She used the Tribe Roadmap and worked her way systematically through our 7 steps – she got connected, she did the prep, she did the work and then she moved into healing her body and mind. 

In this Episode

  • Ros came from a non-drinking household and apart from the odd half-a-pint of beer in the pub with her friends, her teenage years were alcohol-free.
  • As she entered her 20s Ros left the UK and began a career in tourism – where drinking was very much part of the work hard/play hard culture.
  • She began to drink regularly and with enthusiasm.
  • Ros lived in Mexico for a couple of years and discovered that there was a drink that was stronger than tequila – strong enough to put her in hospital in fact.
  • As she says, “if it was there I would drink it”.
  • Like many of us, Ros was into healthy eating and going to the gym but no way was she going to relinquish the booze!
  • In fact, she was blissfully unaware of the toxicity of alcohol and had no idea that the “low risk” limits of alcohol are one and a half bottles of wine a week.
  • In fact, the WHO now recommends that if we want to be healthy we don’t drink any alcohol at all.
  • I could do a whole episode on the toxicity of alcohol but let me just give you Russell Brand’s brilliant answer when people ask him why he’s not drinking – he simply says “that stuff’s flammable you know”…
  • Thanks to our workshop, Ros is now more than aware of just how much damage alcohol does.
  • She lost both her sisters to cancer and reflected back to the time she spent in a hospice with one of her sisters – there were lots of health experts coming in to talk about healthy eating but not one word about alcohol!
  • Not a word about the fact that alcohol is linked to 7 different types of cancer and that drinking more than 3 small glasses of wine a week raises your risk of breast cancer by 15%.
  • We both agreed with the research that says it takes most people about a decade to recognise that we have a problem – and then to actually do something about it.
  • We both wasted far too long setting rules around our drinking and trying to moderate!
  • Ros recognised that she needed help about 10 years before joining Tribe Sober but once she did join, everything changed for her.
  • She felt such a sense of relief when she met other people who had the same “problem” with alcohol and she realised that she was not alone in this.
  • If you’re feeling alone in your struggle then please check out Tribe Sober – we are here for you and nothing makes us happier than helping people to ditch the booze and change their life.
  • Ros took all of our advice to heart and accepted that sobriety is not something we do “on the side” or “tinker round the edges” – we have to make it a priority, forget the people pleasing, and learn to put ourselves first.
  • Ros coped with her social life by taking our advice to “be an anthropologist” – learn to be an observer and watch how people change as the drinking progresses – no need to judge anyone, come from a place of curiosity.
  • She got through her Sober Firsts, taking pleasure in every achievement and sharing them with us at the Zoom Café – she even did a Sober Cruise!
  • We talked about the value of the Annual Trackers we use – although it might seem a bit low-tech to have a piece of paper divided into 365 squares it works better than the trackers on your phone which just take you back to zero if you have a slip-up.
  • With our trackers, you colour in every single alcohol-free day so that you can observe your Sober Stretches and see that they are getting longer.
  • As Ros didn’t have a single slip up she took great pleasure in colouring in her tracker and then posting it on our chatgroup on Screenshot Saturday.
  • Our Annual trackers give perspective and keep us motivated – if you would like one just email me – at janet@nulltribesober.com
  • As she enters her second year of sobriety Ros is planning to relax into it – it’s the new normal and her husband is also sober.
  • After a few months of watching Ros, her husband decided to do our Sober Spring Challenge to keep her company – and he’s been sober ever since!

    More Info

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Episode Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program.  If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today
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The 11 Year Fact

Did you know that the average dependent drinker will struggle alone for 11 years before reaching out for help?

Don’t wait for 11 years – join Tribe Sober today!