Giving up alcohol and Becoming Sober Curious.

I have always been the “party girl”. I started drinking around 15 years old, I was one year younger then everyone else in school. Of course you are starting to experiment at discos and then you begin to go out overage when you are 17. I would say my drinking calmed down quite alot when i turned 18 as i was in a 3.5 year relationship and i was very settled in that relationship. It was my first love and couldn’t have asked for a better one. But i was alot younger then and a completely different person. 

 

When i was 21 years, that relationship ended and that was the start of my crazy party girl days. I was in 3rd year of college, and i was honestly going out drinking maybe minimum 3 nights a week. Monday was monday club, tuesday i might try and go for a few quiet drinks in a pub, wednesday was for the rock night trad music, thursday was secret garden again. I would go out with absolutely anyone and look for any reason at all to go, dragging anyone i could find with me. 3rd year and 4th years were hard years for me. I had gone from the girl who barely showed up in college, never went drinking to now being completely immersed in binge drinking every single week.

 

I got a wake up call when we had to get placement for college. I asked one of the lecturers i knew most well and she said maryrose i dont know who you are,  your grades are shocking and your never in class. I was taken aback but i knew i would get a reference from the next lecturer. But the same thing happened. And it happened again. I was refused by 3 lecturers to be my academic reference for placement. This is when i started to wake up to the way i was living life. Completely numb. No self love, respect or care in the world. Binge drinking my problems away every single week. Never able to sit in silence in my own company. 

 

At the time, I was also suffering with extreme insomina. I remeber most nights i would be wide awake until 3am. Because of this i would never make college in the mornings, i would always come in in the afternoon so ended up falling behind in all my classes and started to fail most classes also. My insomnia got to such a bad point i had to start smoking weed on my own every night for one year. Not many people know this about me but i think it is important to speak about because on paper, i was the happiest, energetic, outgoing, crazy, sociable person you could meet. When inside i was broken. It makes me really sad when i have to think back to this time. The version of maryrose that i wish to never be again. I actually dont even recognise her. I have so many regrets from this time of my life but i guess that is what i needed to go through at the time. 

 

I got through college anyway and i then started my second relationship. I stayed with this person for about one and a half years. Again like my first relationship, I never went out drinking. Maybe occasionally as he wasn’t a big drinker. After moving to dubai with him, the relationship parted ways after 10 days of moving my whole life to dubai. I found myself heart broken and alone with no one to call for help, or tell me what to do. During that year in dubai, i drank every single weekend for one year. I dont think i missed one weekend of drinking. I would work like a slave monday – sunday in real estate, make no money, and then every saturday do a brunch which is like 7pm-10pm 100 euro and an endless supply of alcohol, get absolutley pissed, find myself getting sick at the toilet at 3am and do it all again the following weekend.

 

In dubai i was binge drinking to again, numb what was going on in my life. I was dealing with heartbreak of a break up where nothing was given a chance, i went with the wrong company to work for in real estate and stayed one year too long in the job i should have changed jobs straight away but you cant go back in time and change things, i had no friends for approximately six months as dubai is an extremely hard place to make friends if you are not a teacher. Going out drinking at the weekend was the highlight of my week. It was giving my temporary endorphins. A big high and then a big low. Repeat the cycle. 

 

When i moved to bali that was the start of me attempting to give up alcohol. I remember this was one of the first times my identity started to shift and i had my first awakening. The hangovers started to get so bad, i hate the taste of alcohol anyway i only really like cider nothing else, i felt horrfiic the next day for the fact i coudlnt get up and do anything with my day, i would be stuck to the bed, i would have to take painkillers, i have regrets, i had the fear etc. 

 

So in bali i started to experiment with going alcohol free on nights out. It was my first time i started to go out sober and not drink alcohol. I remebe the first few times it was the most scary thing in the world. The feeling of not holding a glass in your hand was just ultimate social anxiety. Feeling like i wasnt able to enjoy myself if i didnt feel drunk. Feeling like i was missing out on having the craic with my friends.

 

Then the thoughts come in  – your a loser, what are you doing, people will think your weird, life is short just have the drink, you cant have as much fun as everyone else etc. luckily bali was a very supportive environment to become sober curious. My friends there were also doing it and this made things 100 times easier. It was the norm in bali to go out sober. You would go out, dance yout legs off, have the best craic ever, and then all drive home sober on our motorbikes and be up for sunrise the next day. The best feeling in the world. 

 

After Bali I moved to Australia and I just went straight back to square one. I went straight into farmwork after being immersed in the most beautiful environment in bali of self development and spirituality and i would say that was the start of a very rough 15 months along this journey up to my current point. Thats where it all went wrong lol. In farmwork, because we were so isolated and bored after work with nothing to do, all we would do it drink. I remember drinking after work, sat in a bucket talking shit for a few hours every evening was the highlight of my day. We used drink most evenings. There was a few things happened during my farmwork, alot of drinking, alot of mistakes, some things i dont even want to remember or speak about again that were a part of my old identity and i hate that farmwork brought this old shit side of me out again. 

 

Australia has a huge drinking lifestyle. I would say the same as ireland. You work hard during the week and then you go out drinking on the weekend, every weekend. So i came home from australia back to ireland and the drinking continued. Not as much but there were alot of times especially that happened when i was working at the horse sales drinking too much, stupid things happening, waking up feeling like i had been hit by a truck, massive regrets etc. the hangovers, what was happening on nights out, the next day feeling, getting sick every night at 3-4am, it just all kept happening and it was getting worse and worse. 

 

Until i realised that, i really dont want to drink anymore. I have been battling with this new shift since living in bali in 2021 and it has been a hard journey. The constant pull and push of my identity moving from the party girl to the self development and spiritual girl. I have the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. One telling me to stop being a loser and have the craic and drink and the other telling me i have changed a s aperson and i dont need to drink anymore, i have nothing to prove to anyone and my friends will support me with this decision. 

 

As i speak about this, i am 71 days sober. I am using an app called quit drinking and it is so amazing because it shows you how many days youve been alcohol free for, money saved, longest streak being sober, remember why you quit etc. and this app really helps to keep me on track. The fact that it is 70 days now is motivating to keep going. I have been offered so much drink in thailand but never wanted it. Its hardest at the start to say no but it becomes so much easier. 

 

I want to inspire other people in becoming sober curious. If someone like me, an ex party girl, binge drinker, drinking continuously for 10 years can being their journey of becoming sober curious then you can too. You are under no obligation to drink just because your friends said you should, and if your friends are not supportive of you giving up alcohol, get some new friends. I dont know why this isnt normalised more and why we make it such a hard thing to do. 

 

But im going to share some tips for anyone interested in starting to give up alcohol, or just to give it up every now and again or to cut down on binge drinking and bring more awareness to this part of your life. My best advice is to become sober curious which unlike sobriety, which involves giving up alcohol for good, being sober curious is about questioning and modifying your drinking habits.

 

Those who are sober curious don’t go along with the drinking culture. Just because others are drinking, they won’t necessarily do the same. People who are sober curious will consider how much they want to drink or if they will at all.