After 5 Years Sober Here’s What Happened When I Started Drinking Again

The link between alcohol, sobriety, and self-awareness

I’ve been sitting with whether or not to share this for a while.

It’s not an easy story, and it comes with an important caveat - this really isn’t a guide, and it’s most definitely not advice. I don’t want anyone to read this and think, “oh, it’s fine then I can start drinking and just stop again later.” That’s not what this is.

This is simply my own personal reflection on what happened when I stopped drinking for five years and then chose to drink again, and I’m sharing it because I know so many of us have an interesting or, shall we say, complicated relationship with alcohol.

There’s no judgment in this story, no shame and no blame, not towards myself and not towards anyone else. It’s really just about being honest.

Growing up with alcohol in the UK

Like a lot of us in the UK, I started drinking young!

By the time I was fourteen or fifteen, alcohol was just part of life alongside parties, boys and being social. Then came university, where the drinking culture was huge, absolutely woven into the way people connected. Later, I moved to London and got a job, and again alcohol was everywhere. Every weekend, every gathering, every new friendship seemed to revolve around it.

Even when I lived abroad, alcohol was how people bonded and let loose.

But by the time I was twenty-seven, I began to notice that something was shifting. I

was studying Kinesiology, deepening my understanding of health and wellbeing, and beginning to see things in a more holistic way. I knew we weren’t just mind and matter, but souls too, with layers of emotion running underneath everything we did. Yet my own relationship with alcohol was still far from healthy.

I leaned on it in social situations and had built a huge emotional attachment to it. I would romanticise it so that a sunny day meant a cold glass of rosé, a wedding called for champagne, a wintry Sunday invited red wine. I grew up with those subliminal messages too, the ones we all absorb from films and TV, showing us that drinking is glamorous and sophisticated and part of leading a full, exciting life.

That kind of programming runs so deep that even when we don’t realise it, it shapes the way we see alcohol.

The hidden truth about drinking

The truth, though, was that drinking isn’t really glamorous at all. I often drank unconsciously, not even realising how much until it was too late. I was messy, I would blackout, forget things, make foolish decisions, and then feel that horrible mix of regret and confusion the next day.

I wouldn’t have said I was addicted, but I was sensitive and alcohol hit me harder than I wanted to admit.

The moment that really made me stop and think happened at a wedding. On the surface, it looked like I had a “great night.” But what actually happened was that I ended up at two o’clock in the morning, crying, wandering around with no shoes and no jacket, trying to find where I was staying. It was messy, chaotic, and it left me with a deep sense that something had to change.

I still didn’t think of myself as having a “problem,” but I could feel how unhealthy my relationship with alcohol had become, and more importantly, I realised how unaware I was of the impact it was having on me. That lack of self-awareness was the real issue.

And that’s what I want anyone reading this to take away, whatever the pattern or habit, whether it’s alcohol, food, shopping, relationships, or something else entirely, the question we need to keep asking is: “how aware am I of what’s really going on here? What’s the story underneath this behaviour?” and perhaps more importantly, “does it need to change?”.

Not long after, I decided to try a challenge: 100 days without alcohol. I made it to day ninety-two before giving in, but even that planted a seed in me. At Christmas, I did a detox (and hey, not the easiest time of year to stop drinking, but I needed it) and when it was over, I thought, I’ll just keep going and see what happens.

Hitting the 5 years sober mark

That decision turned into five years without alcohol, which I still just can’t even believe I did - it flabbergasts me.

During those years, so much of my life shifted. I retrained, I moved, I fell in love, I attended weddings and parties sober, and I built a very different way of living. All of this happened alongside some of the hardest experiences of my life. In 2020, like so many people, I went through huge upheaval: I lost my job, moved back in with my parents, ended a relationship, and went through a deep spiritual awakening.

It was full of grief and anger, but still I didn’t drink, it just wasn’t even an option, and I couldn’t have been happier with my decision.

What surprised me, though, was the tricky trap I fell into of that spiritual superiority which went along the lines of “look at me, I don’t drink, I must be better than you”. It’s something I’ve seen in other circles too, whether it’s in veganism, yoga or certain spiritual communities. It’s that subtle ego trap that says - because I don’t do this thing, I’m more evolved than you.

But that’s simply not true. We’re all spiritual, because we are all Spirit having a human experience. Whether you drink or don’t drink, eat meat or don’t eat meat, it doesn’t make you more or less spiritual. How you engage with your own spiritual nature is a different matter, but abstaining from something doesn’t give you a higher status.

Sobriety didn’t make me better than anyone else. It was never about anyone else. It was about me, and about the parts of me I was too afraid to face.

The decision to start drinking again

Looking back, the real reason I drank in the first place was because I wasn’t confident.

In my Soul Contract, one of my key lessons is to come out of hiding, to express who I really am, to remember my worth and my divinity. Alcohol gave me a mask. It gave me a false confidence that let me perform a version of myself that wasn’t true, and wasn’t in integrity with my soul.

So when I decided, five years later, to have a drink on Christmas Day, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Would the old shame return? Would I feel judged, or fall back into the same patterns?

But what actually happened was very different.

Because of the deep emotional and spiritual work I’d done during those years, the layers I’d peeled back and cleared away, I no longer needed alcohol to be that mask for me. When I had a glass of wine with my boyfriend, or raised a toast at a celebration, it wasn’t about hiding or numbing. It was simply a choice in that moment.

And this time, there was no shame, no judgment, no disapproval, not from me, and not from the people around me.

So here’s what I realised - it was never about alcohol. The biggest shift for me hasn’t really been about alcohol at all, it’s been about my own self-awareness.

Giving up alcohol was an essential part of my becoming, and I’m so grateful for the experience.

The biggest lesson? There’s no right or wrong

I now know, in a way I didn’t before, that I don’t need alcohol to numb my emotions, I don’t need it to feel confident, or to feel like I belong. I can be myself without it, and I can face whatever I’m feeling without layering something on top.

A lot of the time, when people drink, it isn’t about pleasure, it’s about protection.

It’s about covering something up, creating a layer that numbs what’s happening underneath. For me, alcohol was that numbing agent. Sobriety showed me that healing isn’t about being “fixed” or reaching some perfect state. Healing is about removing the layers that made me forget I was already whole.

So this isn’t a story about whether drinking is good or bad. It’s not about rules or judgment. It’s simply about self-awareness and paying attention to why we do what we do, and meeting ourselves honestly in those choices.

For me, that’s meant five years sober, and now, drinking occasionally in a way that feels conscious and 100% shame-free.

If you’d like support and guidance on your spiritual and emotional healing journey, you may like to book a Soul Contract Reading, book a Divine Healing session, or sign up to my newsletter to stay in touch for more similar posts.

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Carry on exploring