For my first 18 months of being a fizzy water warrior I stayed at home, hiding. My sober journey felt very private, just between me and my family. It took me ages to come to terms with ‘becoming boring’ and my quitting booze felt like I would let a lot of people down.

When on occasion I did go out during that 18 months I would sit holding a beer and pretend to sip on it in order to fit in. I was over 40 years old, faking to avoid ridicule.

Like many sober curious souls, I have attempted sobriety countless times over my life-sucking thirty-year drinking escapade. Now, sitting proudly at Day 120, I’m pleased to say I am riding on the crest of my “best attempt EVER”.

But what a journey it has been!

I’ve been away for a few nights. Away from children, away from demands, spillages and arguments. I packed a small bag, and like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, kissed each member of my family that were lined up on the driveway goodbye. The gap between my ears and shoulders got bigger as I turned the key in the ignition……

Alcohol manages to seep into most aspects of our lives. It trickles into our home life, dampens our relationships, envelops our social occasions and it even soaks into our jobs. It’s hard to avoid. When we give up drinking, we notice alcohol everywhere. It follows us around like a bad smell, lined up on shelves, lit up on billboards and sipped in every TV show. It’s there, reminding us, triggering us and trying to pull us back in. Its annoying to say the least.

I spend more time alone.

Hanging out in clubs, bars and kebab shops (or prison cells – but that’s another story!) isn’t quite as appealing when sober. The noise pumping from speakers seems louder than ever before, half-cut revelers at the bar pushing me out of the way aggrevate me, friends getting too close and repeating the same old stories with spit in the corners of their mouths gets exasperating. It wasn’t just everybody else or music making me feel self-aware, it was me, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin when trying to sober socialize.

I make singed black toast; I leave piles of washing until they get mouldy; I go to bed really late when I’m over tired, I let the kids have fizzy drinks and have to deal with them have sugar comedowns, I leave decaying fruit in the bottom of the fridge until it turns to sludge and I don’t put lids on things properly.

I leave everything too long.

I avoid dealing with stuff.

There is nothing wrong with hiding.... for a while. But at some point, like me, you're going to have to leave the safe confines of your house and face the outside world. My first ever sober social event was, to say the least, awkward. Fresh from therapy, I stepped into a pub where I’d arranged to meet my two best mates. A throng of revelers pushed past me as I tried to find a bar stool. I sat with a straight back and my heart racing wondering what to order. I tried to look as if I was normal. Just your average punter on a very ordinary night out.