This is My Secret Sobriety

On 'coming out' as an alcoholic and closing in on 10 years of sobriety

Alcoholic noun A person affected with alcoholism.

Alcoholism noun A chronic disease in which a person craves drinks that contain alcohol and is unable to control his or her drinking. A person with this disease also needs to drink greater amounts to get the same effect and has withdrawal symptoms after stopping alcohol use.

Hi. My name is Kate and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve not shared those words for a long time. But as I close in on ten years of sobriety, it’s time to break the silence.

13 March 2023 marks my tenth sober birthday. I am so proud of this yet hardly anyone I know is aware of the reason I choose not to drink.

When I first got sober, I was ashamed of my addiction. Just over a year later, when I moved to a new town and ran my own small business, I didn’t want people to know my secret because I was scared it would adversely impact my reputation and my business success. Honestly, I was scared of what people would think of me. I’ve always needed to be liked and for me, up until now, a dark history of alcoholism didn’t gel with being ‘likeable’.

I sold my business four months ago after seven years of burying myself with work and have had time to think about what is important to me. The need to be open and honest about who I am, along with the desire to unburden myself of this ‘secret’ kept coming up. On top of that, the words “when we recover out loud, we prevent others dying quietly” kept looping through my mind.

Writing these words, my heart is racing, my hands are shaking and there’s a lump in my throat.

My hopes for the future of this newsletter are threefold:

1. Relieve myself of the need to hide the truth when people ask why I don’t drink and give myself the freeing opportunity to be open and honest about who I am.

2. Share my addiction and sobriety journey so that those currently in the throes of alcoholism, or who are close to someone in active addiction, have hope. If you don’t believe in miracles yet, you just might after you read my story.

3. Break the stigma and stereotyping surrounding alcoholism. Although there are many people out there already re-writing the commonly held beliefs about addiction, we still need more voices, louder voices, and powerful stories about real people fighting this disease and getting better!

If you are interested in reading more about how an ordinary girl from Northern England who suffered with crippling shyness and anxiety, became a chronic alcoholic, hit rock bottom, miraculously got sober at the age of 32, and went on to spend the next (almost) ten years living a life beyond her wildest dreams, please subscribe and all will be revealed.

Thank you for reading.

Yours in sobriety,

Kate xox