Millie Gooch: Sober Girl Society Handbook author explains why you should treat alcohol like a bad boyfriend

Sliding into a giant ball pit at an adult playground to celebrate my recent 33rd birthday, I was overcome with joy.

Everything about the experience, from the giant swing to the mocktail I sipped, felt exciting, fun – and as far removed from previous celebrations as you can imagine.

Because for years, my birthday involved falling down stairs, fighting with friends and passing out on the train home. And it wasn’t just birthdays; booze and blackouts were par for the course on pretty much every social occasion. Until one hungover morning, aged 26, I questioned why I was continuing to do something that was causing me so much harm – namely, drinking alcohol. So I stopped.

After that, life quickly improved. Without alcohol-induced anxiety as my constant companion, I became more confident, calm and focused. Seven months after I quit drinking I launched the Sober Girl Society, a community for other alcohol-free women, and have since become an ambassador for the charity Alcohol Change UK.

Because I passionately believe that all of us would be happier if we took the time to re-evaluate our relationship with drink – asking ourselves if it’s actually making us happy, or slowly, insidiously, doing the very opposite.

There was no indication I’d drink to destruction as a child, when I loved writing, prioritised homework over partying and spent my weekends at dance competitions. I’d barely touched booze before I started university. That was when everything changed.

I needed to make new friends and, as a state-educated working-class girl , I felt out of my depth surrounded by glamorous students from wealthier families. I quickly realised alcohol gave me the confidence to forge connections, turning off the unwelcome voice that told me I didn’t deserve to be there.

And alcohol was everywhere. It felt like I’d discovered such an easy and fun solution to my confidence crisis that I carried on drinking four times a week for the next three years. Our drink of choice was two triple vodkas with Red Bull, just £1.50 each, poured into a pint glass – cheap and guaranteed to get me drunk fast.

At the PR company I joined after graduating, drinking was actively encouraged at networking events. Yes, there was the odd morning I’d wake up feeling horrendous and worry about what I might have said, but nobody seemed to care, and the benefits – more bravado, better visibility – felt worth it.

At 22, I got my dream job on a women’s magazine. I drank less during the week, yet ramped up my weekend drinking to compensate, blacking out on a regular basis. As I sought oblivion, I would transform into a different person, picking fights with friends for no reason.

The day after one birthday, my friends told me that, when they wanted to go home at 1.30am, I’d called them ‘c***s’ and told them I hated them. Mortified, I apologised endlessly. To an extent they found it funny – they liked ‘fun Millie’ who got the party started. Yet they rarely saw my guilt and shame afterwards. Insecurities about my looks and personality propelled me to drink on dates until I was so inebriated I invariably thought every guy I met was the love of my life. I often didn’t hear from them again.

I constantly put my safety at risk. I hit my head falling on to the bathtub of a hotel and knocked myself out. I passed out on the way back from London to Gravesend, Kent, where I lived with my mum Jane, a retired nursery school teacher, and dad Robert, a retired sales manager, and woke at the end of the line an hour from home.

Other times I had no memory of getting home at all – such as when a friend bundled me in a taxi, yet my Uber receipt revealed I’d been kicked out after a couple of miles. All I can remember is throwing up and crying outside a car park. I’d wake up missing precious jewellery and bank cards, with vomit in my hair and a smashed phone. Increasingly, the shame left me suicidal, with an urge simply not to exist that lasted for days.

Every weekend my mum, terrified I’d end up kidnapped or dead on a train track, would beg me: ‘Please don’t get that drunk tonight.’ I’d shrug off her concerns, too embarrassed to admit I was struggling, that one drink always seemed to lead to another.

There was no ‘rock bottom’ moment, but one hungover morning in February 2018, taunted by flashbacks of throwing my friend’s burrito out of our taxi window, I decided I’d had enough. I couldn’t carry on harming and humiliating myself like this.

I didn’t think of myself as an alcoholic – I was a party girl who binge drank, not a daily drinker – but thought abstaining would be easier than trying to cut down. Whenever I’d tried to limit myself to one or two drinks in the past I’d invariably had more. Moderation involved too much mental gymnastics.

When I announced to friends I was never drinking again, most said: ‘Yeah right.’ I’m not sure I believed it myself. Yet on my first alcohol-free weekend, a group of us went on an alpaca trek in the Kent countryside. Discovering another, wholesome, way to spend my weekend was a revelation.

After a fortnight, I ventured out for a friend’s birthday. I can’t pretend sipping alcohol-free beer so soon after stopping drinking was easy, but I didn’t hate it. I was worried friends wouldn’t like me when I wasn’t ‘fun Millie’, but I still hit the dance floor, stubbornly determined to stay until the end of the night.

I was exhilarated to wake clearheaded the next day – and things only got better from there.

Dragging my girlfriends out for brunch to celebrate my first year sober, I marvelled at how much my life had changed. I was so much happier with more energy and a sense of purpose.

In the almost seven years since I stopped drinking the sobriety movement has gathered pace, and thousands more women are seeking to re-evaluate their relationship with alcohol. That’s why, as well as offering online and in-person support through the Sober Girl Society, which now has 221,000 Instagram followers, I’ve written my new book, Booze Less, showing how you can do just that – and that by cutting back on alcohol you can achieve a happier, more fulfilling life.

Drawing on a combination of strategies that helped me stop drinking and therapeutic approaches I learned during my recently completed masters degree in addiction and mental health, it is part journal, part practical guide to helping you gain control of your alcohol intake, whether you want to cut down or stop altogether. Here’s how . . .

DON’T TELL YOURSELF IT’S ‘NOT THAT BAD’

WHEN I first stopped drinking, a number of people told me I was ‘not that bad’ and ‘didn’t have a drinking problem’ – despite the fact I was putting myself in dangerous situations, and my mental health was at an all-time low.

Unlike smoking, which we encourage people to give up, our perception of drinking is that it’s something you persevere with until hitting some arbitrary threshold of ‘bad’. This perpetuates the misconception that there is a clearly defined line between ‘normal drinking’ and alcohol dependency. When, in reality, alcohol use disorder exists on a far-ranging spectrum.

By constantly telling millions of drinkers who are struggling with alcohol consumption (but perhaps don’t medically qualify as alcohol dependent) that their habits are ‘not that bad’, we’re discouraging any kind of selfreflection or introspection.

Just because you’re not checking into rehab doesn’t mean you wouldn’t benefit from drinking less. Instead of asking yourself: ‘Do I have a drinking problem?’, try asking: ‘Is drinking creating problems for me?’

LEARN TO PLAY HANGOVER BINGO

One study found a hangover can have 47 symptoms, from vertigo to tremors and breathing problems. Listing yours may lay bare the absurdity of subjecting yourself to so much pain.

I’ve presented them in bingo format in my book to add a sense of fun to an otherwise heavy topic – humour is key to staying sober.

You can also draw a ‘wheel of drinking’ – a circle divided into eight sections to represent your mental and physical health, finances, career, friendships, personal growth, surroundings and romantic relationships. Colouring in each segment your drinking impacts helps visualise how much of your life is affected.

PREPARE A SOBER TOOLKIT FOR YOURSELF

IN THE sober community, we call the strategies that keep you on track when you’re tempted to waver a ‘sober toolkit’. Perhaps your favourite herbal tea, a good box set, a bath or a brisk dog walk is in yours.

Lego is in my sober toolkit – niche, perhaps, but it shuts off my brain when I’m stressed.

Good non-alcoholic beers are also included, as are hypnotherapy sessions to stem panic, books and writing. My brain is so chaotic that putting thoughts on paper is the best way to disseminate them.

That’s why my new book is a journal that can help you process your relationship with alcohol and hold yourself accountable. KNOW

WHAT YOUR TRIGGERS ARE

UNDERSTAND the people, places and emotions that make you want to drink. In early sobriety I’d want to drink whenever I felt insecure or heard the music played at parties I’d once drank at.

Perhaps visiting your family home or a cafe in which you would spend mornings hungover are your triggers. Or maybe there’s a friend you feel pressured into drinking with.

You don’t necessarily need to avoid situations or people you associate with alcohol – simply being aware you may struggle but that the cravings will pass, and giving the people you used to drink with advance notice that you’re taking a break from booze, can be enough.

Coping strategies can help you handle triggering emotions healthily and overcome any feelings of insecurity.

IDENTIFY BELIEFS ABOUT BOOZE, THEN BURN THEM

DECONSTRUCTING the narratives surrounding alcohol makes it easier to stop drinking. Perhaps, like I was, you are convinced alcohol is the route to rewarding connections.

But every day we interact with people without drinking. Even if your only recent sober interaction was a friendly chat in the supermarket, it is important you register that it happened without alcohol.

Another irrational belief was that friends would only like me if I drank, even though we’d had plenty of other fun times together – and I was often a liability to them hammered.

A third was that I was more interesting drunk, when in reality my life was a hamster wheel of going to the same bars and clubs in between spending the weekend indoors with the curtains closed.

Since I stopped drinking, my horizons have broadened immeasurably, meaning I have much more to talk about.

So, write down your inaccurate beliefs around alcohol on a piece of paper, and then burn them!

TREAT ALCOHOL AS YOU WOULD AN EX

WHEN I stopped drinking, I noticed parallels between my love affair with booze and romantic relationships that started well but turned sour.

Because you undoubtedly did have good times while drinking, it’s easy to develop rose-tinted spectacles and tell yourself you should carry on, even if it’s making you increasingly miserable – just as you might cling on to a problematic ex who once made you feel special.

Writing a ‘break-up’ letter to alcohol, outlining the good parts as well as the bad and explaining why you’ve had enough, can remind you how toxic your drinking has become.

Compile a ‘break-up’ playlist of songs that make you feel happy and block alcohol the way you might an ex, by unfollowing triggering social media pages and taking a decent break – a minimum of 30 days – before allowing any contact.

RECONNECT WITH CHILDHOOD HOBBIES

AFTER I quit drinking, I resumed the hip-hop dancing classes I had abandoned for booze, which made me so happy that I took up other childhood hobbies, such as writing poems.

As we get older, so often we ditch the things that once gave us joy because we worry they’re ‘uncool’, but it’s important to reconnect with who we were before we started drinking.

When looking for a hobby to occupy your newfound sober time, don’t worry about it being productive – an activity doesn’t have to have a purpose other than being fun.

ESTABLISH SOME BOUNDARIES

WHILE you don’t owe anyone an explanation, having a response as to why you’re not drinking in the early days can make all the difference between going home sober and getting sozzled again.

This is something I struggled with at first, when I would mutter something vague and embarrassed.

If someone tells you to let your hair down, for example, then quipping: ‘Rapunzel did that once and someone literally climbed up it, so I think I’m all right’ can help establish control.

And don’t become a walkover; you might be happy to be the designated driver, but not necessarily at 2am.

So saying ‘I’m more than happy to give you a lift home if you don’t mind leaving when I’m ready to go’ before the evening starts is wise.

And it’s entirely reasonable not to chip in for endless rounds when everyone else is drinking £10 cocktails and you’re having a £2.50 Diet Coke.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU GAIN BY GIVING UP

WE ALWAYS talk about giving up alcohol as if it’s a punishment, but rarely focus on what we gain. For everything you are sacrificing, write down something else you are getting back, whether it’s more energy, more time, better friendships or increased focus.

Look for visible reminders; my wardrobe is so much better now because money I would have spent on alcohol goes on clothes.

Write down every achievement completed sober, from your first Saturday night to your first party, and put each entry in a ‘confidence jar’ to build momentum.

Make two five-year plans for yourself, with and without alcohol. How would your life look if you carried on drinking? Then look at what you could achieve if you stopped drinking. In my first plan I’d still be spending every weekend crying and questioning my life choices; in my second I’ve achieved far more than I once thought possible.

I’ve witnessed so many others stop drinking and thrive. Giving up alcohol won’t solve all your problems but, for most, it’s a catalyst for living a better life.