My Story

They renamed my ‘local’ from The Cathedral Tavern to The Fountain when I was 18, and it had been our regular weekend drinking spot for 2 years prior to the change of name. I spent three birthdays there, each time celebrating my 18th birthday!

Alcohol has been present in my life since I was about 16 and back then it wasn’t frowned upon in my social circles at all. It was more celebrated. Your first glass of wine, your first beer, that silly time you had too much before you were even of age to drink - it was all celebrated with a degree of success on the ladder of life!

Until November 2021, alcohol was a large part of my life. Thirty plus years in the hospitality sector, managing restaurants in London, managing a wine shop in Maida Vale before moving to Paris and working in bars. After that I became a head chef in a busy Italian restaurant and even more recently i have set up a hospitality solutions company. It has always been present and a part of my work. So much so that I avidly searched for jobs that would give me more access to hedonistic lifestyles and easier access to alcohol and drugs in the early days. My career has had some extreme ups and downs and almost always the downs have been because of alcohol issues.

To be fair, the extreme highs were often a result of drinking as well. Looking back, I loved alcohol and drinking but as many can attest to, alcohol didn’t really like me and I was told on many occasions from people that I should probably have a look at my realtionship with this liquid. I often fobbed them off, blamed the booze and not myself and got on with it or had a drink to console myself.

Before lockdown I was drinking too much. My family life was suffering and I was often not remembering the night before or what I had said to people or sometimes even how I had got home. I had a good job as a head chef, I had two young children and I was living but I wasn’t feeling anymore. Something wasn’t right.

Lockdown arrived, and the drinking accelerated and this is when it got to a stage when I had to question my relationship with alcohol. Although it didn’t happen as soon as lockdown happened. It took nearly 2 years after the first lockdown for me to realise that enough was enough.

It reached a climax where I had become lost, drinking at lunchtime way too often, getting another bottle of wine at 11pm when I had already drunk two. I was back at work at this point but everything wasn’t right. Days were long and I was lost. I had forgotten how to feel and was going through the motions of life without any joy at all.

I stopped one night in late November 2021 and vowed I would do a week alcohol free. I wanted to feel something again and I wanted to make my partner happy because it was obvious the effect of my drinking was taking a toll on her too. So i did the week, I did a month, I started drinking alcohol free drinks and I joined The Sober Club.

I started eating more and a lot of the wrong things (which of course is not the right thing to do and we will deal with this as it is a HUGE part of this sobriety process), but I remained sober. One month became two and at this point it was feeling quite sensational and I started sharing wmy new life with other people. Obviously some old freinds whom had known the older me couldn’t understand such drastic chnages and found it weird. This will happen to you too and is part of the process, but I was happy to share this feeling of FEELING again.

I am three years sober in November 2024, it hasn’t always been easy but what it has been is truly senasational and i recommend it to everyone. The buzz around sobriety is real, and the buzz you get from going alcohol-free is so much bigger than the supposed buzz of alcohol. Which lets face it is probably the worst of all the poisons that humans put into their bodies on a regualar basis with such a carefree attitude.

This is my shortened story of my journey to an alcohol-free life and of course I could go into more depth but I hope you understand my story so that I maybe able to help you achieve sobriety in your life as well.

I have completed the accredited sober coach training and I have the skills to help people achieve their goals. I can’t wait to start working to help YOU!

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