We give alcohol far too much credit...

When I first thought about going sober I couldn’t imagine living my life day to day without alcohol being there to switch off my overactive brain or endless energy at the end of the day. I also couldn’t imagine celebrating a big achievement or even a birthday without a glass of fizz in my hand to make the occasion feel more special. I couldn’t imagine a Christmas without it and heaven forbid, a holiday. I equally couldn’t imagine getting through a tough time without it or a stressful time without a glass of ‘Dutch courage’.

It’s bonkers really. How can one liquid occupy such a pivotal part in so many different scenarios?

We’ve given it far too much importance and genuinely believe that it’s what makes or breaks an event.

I watch it now with those around me who still drink, boasting about hangovers and claiming they had a ‘bloody good night’ because they can’t remember half of it. Rather than seeing alcohol as the thing that threatens our joy, our peace and our presence, we see it as being the reason something is good. We give it far too much importance and far too much credit for the fun we have.

This is where unpicking some of these belief systems can help in sobriety because, for many, alcohol becomes more than just a drink. We’ve assigned alcohol far more responsibility than it ever deserves. It’s a reward, a comfort blanket, a social lubricant, a celebration enhancer and an emotional support system all in one. Somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing it as a drink and started seeing it as a solution.

The things we believe alcohol is giving us aren’t coming from it at all. The celebration is about the event and the people and not the champagne. The connection with someone else isn’t in the glass of wine (in fact, that’s often what threatens connection). The relaxation isn’t actually about the gin and tonic… in fact that was the thing raising cortisol and stressing our bodies out, leading to a 3am wake up with a racing heart.

The strange thing is that alcohol has somehow managed to position itself at both ends of the emotional spectrum. We drink when we’re celebrating and we drink when we’re grieving. We drink when we’re feeling nervous and we drink when we’re wanting to relax. We drink when we’re lonely and yet we also drink when we’re surrounded by people. We drink when we’ve had a brilliant day and we drink when we’ve had a terrible one.

It’s sold to us as the answer to virtually every human emotion.

For years I genuinely believed that removing alcohol would leave a hole in my life because I’d attached it to so many experiences. It was my constant companion. In my head I wasn’t just giving up a drink… I thought I was giving up celebration, connection, comfort, confidence and fun. What I couldn’t see at the time was that I had gradually started crediting alcohol for things it hadn’t actually created at all. The laughter we had didn’t come from the fact we were drinking, it came from the people I was with. The joy came from the occasion or celebration. The sense of achievement came from the hard work I’d put in. Alcohol was simply present, yet I’d somehow promoted it to be the star of the show.

What I’ve come to realise is that this matters because the moment we stop giving alcohol so much credit, it starts to lose some of its power over us.

One of the biggest fears people have when they think about going sober is the belief that life will be somehow lacking without it. Sometimes our experiences of the early days of not drinking reinforce that belief but we can worry that celebrations will feel flat, holidays will feel boring, social occasions will feel awkward and stressful periods will feel impossible. But if you push past those early fears you’ll see that you’re far more resilient that you realise and that alcohol has actually created a lot of the problems that it promises to solve.

The problem we tend to have is that we’ve spent years pairing alcohol with virtually every meaningful experience we’ve had and over time our brains start to connect the two together. We think it’s alcohol that creates the fun or solves the problems when actually the reality is that alcohol is the thing that threatens the fun and creates the problems in the first place.

Over the years of drinking we stop seeing alcohol as something that accompanies an event and start seeing it as something that creates the event. Psychologists call this associative learning. If two things repeatedly occur together, our brains begin linking them automatically. It’s one of the ways we make sense of the world, but it can also lead us astray.

Alcohol benefits enormously from this process… as does the alcohol industry.

Birthdays mean a glass of champagne. Christmas comes and there’s wine. Holidays begin with airport drinks in the bar while you’re waiting. A stressful day ends and there’s a large glass of something waiting on the sofa. Over time, our brains stop seeing these as separate things. Instead, the event and the alcohol become fused together. We don’t think, “I’m celebrating my birthday and drinking champagne.” We start to think, “Champagne is part of what makes a birthday special.”

Stressful situations are also another time that alcohol gets the credit for solving a problem. But in reality it isn’t the wine you pour at the end ofthe day that helps you relax, it’s the fact it’s the end of the day and you’re home. The exhale you do is relief and if anything alcohol is then stressing your system behind the scenes, raising cortisol and creating havoc that you’ll feel at 3am.

For me personally, I realised that many of the situations I thought required alcohol were simply situations in which alcohol had always been present. There’s a subtle but important difference because one suggests dependency and the other suggests it’s a habit. One is about it being a necessity and the other suggests conditioning through repetition.

What surprised me was how quickly some of those beliefs started to unravel once they were tested. Not immediately, of course. The first sober birthday felt different (and a bit flat) because it challenged years of conditioning. The first holiday felt unfamiliar because I’d never experienced one without alcohol. But something feel unfamiliar and something feeling unenjoyable are not the same thing. Feeling different doesn’t mean feeling bad.

This is a mistake that a lot of people make in early sobriety of interpreting discomfort or flatness as evidence that there’s something wrong. In reality, ot often just the absence of a familiar habit. Any awkwardness isn’t necessarily proof that alcohol is a missing part that we will never be able to let go of, it’s often proof that our brains are adjusting to a new way of doing things.

The best thing you can do in sobriety is constantly question any assumptions you have so if you find yourself thinking, “This won’t be as good without alcohol,” stop and ask yourself whether alcohol is genuinely the source of the enjoyment in that moment or whether it’s simply that you’re used to seeing the two together.

When I did this, more often than not, the answer was that they’d simply been linked in my mind.

I’d spent years believing alcohol was a massive part of these experiences, only to discover that it had very often been detracting from them. Alcohol risked more than it brought. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d gone off to bed early, or said things I didn’t mean or even just couldn’t recall things.

I think this is where a lot of freedom comes from in sobriety. Not in learning how to resist alcohol forever because that sounds really exhausting and you’ll end up feeling quite hard done by. But instead in gradually dismantling the myths we’ve built around it. Every sober holiday, every sober birthday, every sober Friday night becomes evidence that alcohol added nothing.

I often think of sobriety as an evidence-gathering exercise. Every time I did something without alcohol that I previously thought required alcohol, I collected another piece of evidence. Evidence that I could socialise without it, evidence that I could celebrate without it, evidence that I could relax without it and evidence that I could cope with difficult emotions without reaching for a drink.

One piece of evidence on it’s own rarely changes a deeply held belief especially around something as addictive as alcohol. But dozens of experiences begin to build a different story. The thing you were once so convinced you needed starts to look a lot less essential and once you begin collecting that evidence, something changes.

You stop seeing sobriety as a life of lack without alcohol and start seeing it as a life where alcohol no longer gets to take centre stage. And that is truly freeing!

Ask yourself what it is you really need in those moments that you think alcohol will deliver. If you want relaxation, you can consider what genuinely helps you relax? If you’re after connection, what creates real connection instead of being zoned out around loved ones? You may be seeking confidence or even comfort. You need to work out what will actually deliver all of those things for you.

Sobriety is a wonderful opportunity to stop pouring a drink automatically on every emotion and to ask yourself what it is you really need. To become truly curious. Then you’re in a headspace to properly listen and then to find things that would actually help. Because the other contradiction is that you will want different solutions for what relaxes you and what helps you celebrate. One thing won’t be the ‘fix all’ solution the way that alcohol promises to be.

We spend so many years believing alcohol is the answer that we never really investigate the question properly. We never stop to ask what we’re hoping it will give us and we often don’t deal with any of the real problems we then have in our life.

When we do, we often discover that what we’re looking for whether that’s comfort, belonging, celebration, rest, joy, confidence or relief… was never something we could drink. It’s nearly always something deeper, something more human and ultimately something that no drink could ever provide in a lasting way.

So, let’s stop giving alcohol the credit for the nice things that happen in our lives. Alcohol steals the show. So much so, we question if we will be able to have the same amount of fun without it or if we will be resilient without it as a crutch.

It’s time to knock it off it’s pedestal.

If you’d like a session with me at any point, to talk about sobriety or any other challenges you’re facing that you’d like support with, head to my website and send me an email.

I’ve also put together a guide for the first few days and weeks of sobriety that you can find on my website. Head to www.louisaevans.com and pop your email in for it to be sent through to you.

About Louisa

Louisa Evans is a UK-based practitioner specialising in behaviour change and helping people change their relationship with alcohol. With a background in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and a Master’s degree in Psychology, she combines psychological understanding with practical, compassionate support to help people build self-trust, develop healthier habits and create lasting change.

Her work is informed by psychology, cognitive behavioural approaches and hypnotherapy, with a focus on making complex ideas accessible and practical. Alongside her one-to-one work, Louisa is the creator of online courses, a podcast and educational resources designed to help people understand themselves better and make meaningful, sustainable changes in their lives.

She is a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS), a Senior Member and Registered Supervisor with the ACCPH, and a registered member of the General Hypnotherapy Register (GHR). Through her clinical work, writing and teaching, she has supported thousands of people to build confidence, strengthen resilience and create lasting change.

You can find out more at www.louisaevans.com.