Reading · Clover Stroud: On The Way Life Feels

On 22 August, 2021, I decided to stop drinking alcohol. At that time, I didn’t think I was an alcoholic, if being an alcoholic meant being someone whose life was unmanageable due to drink. I wasn’t a falling down drunk. I rarely drank in the day time.

And yet… alcohol is a lot more complicated than that, isn’t it? Every year, around this time, I write something about alcohol, and what it feels like to take it out of my life. Today I’ve made a video about what life feels like now without drink in my life, and why I made that decision.

This is the exact place in France where we had broken down - and the moment I decided to stop drinking. It had been quite a trying and difficult holiday and breaking down was kind of comical it was so awful. I had this feeling - I can use this holiday as a moment of complete change in my life, to do something really good, by removing alcohol from my life. And I did that.

I’ve been extremely honest - my desire for alcohol has been stronger, recently, than it was a couple of years ago. I talk about this, and how I am dealing with these feelings. I also talk about why I stopped, how I did it, how I managed the hard and lonely feelings that sobriety brings with it, what I gain from being completely sober, my relationship with being around drinking now, and how sobriety helps me in my life now.

I have been sober for five years. This is a video about why and how I have chosen to remove alcohol from my life

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