My Life as a Sober Millennial in London

What’s it like being a sober millennial Londoner? Well, before we get into that, let’s take a soggy stroll down hazy memory lane to understand what it’s like being in active addiction in London. Rather, what it was like for me.

As the fluorescent lights intermittently blink over me like they’re flashing SOS messages in morse code, I sluggishly drag my sleepy fingers over my creaky keyboard to punch in the final numbers this spreadsheet so desperately craves so I can run the end-of-day workbook. Let’s all rejoice in the remarkably dull mathematical wonders of Excel. Wooh. It’s 4:45 p.m. and I can already hear the office fridge taking a beating. It sounds like blasts of wind crashing into the wood paneling of saloon doors, violently swinging back and forth hanging onto the hinges for dear life in the midst of a typhoon. Thank god for the mechanics of soft-close squishable magnetic seals. The pounding of the fridge is accompanied by the operatic crescendo of the crack and fizzle of several freshly opened beers. The malty aroma is just about pungent enough to disguise the vicious smell of magnolia paint that was draped over the office walls a week earlier.

As the workbook spits out numbers, decimals, and dashes—painting a bleak-looking report for management to chew on—my manager hands me a beer and asks if I’m going to the pub with the rest of the team. It’s Tuesday. I accept the beer but decline the pub, citing a half-assedly concocted excuse of having friends around that evening for drinks.

As I down the beer with the grace of a fintech-frat bro (not my drink of choice but alcohol is alcohol and everything tastes better when it’s free), I remember that I actually do have friends coming over tonight. Shit. Payday is a week away so let’s play my favorite game of “Will the supermarket gods bless me with discount delight on my drink of choice.” I whip out my phone, desperately whack away at the screen like I’m pressing real buttons, and whisper a little prayer.

As soon as I hit “go,” Safari immediately delivers the goods. Tesco’s has a deal on my one-liter bottle of rum. And I have an overdraft for a reason, so why not sink further into minus while I submerge myself in the comfort of rum and coke and shots? Plus whatever weed the friends bring round? Obviously I’m going to clear my overdraft on payday like I always do, and rent and bills are paid before I even spend a penny on myself. God, I’m so responsible. I work this mind-numbingly tedious job only to spend 80 percent of my income on bills, on survival. Some people live their dreams of chasing the sunshine beyond the horizon. To always push to see what more is possible.

That ain’t me. I just want some semblance of stability. An itty bitty bit of security. So, I’m absolutely entitled to letting my hair down after a long day of donning the corporate facade, drowning in spreadsheets, and surviving the sweaty, sardine-canned commute to and from work!

Great. Drink sourced, justification justified, and my manager has just handed me a JD and coke premixed can (I guess that’s pre-drinks semi sorted). All that’s left to do is make the ghastly journey from Aldgate East to Walthamstow, shower, shove some leftovers down my throat to prep my stomach to soak up the booze, and away we go.

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Being in active addiction in London flies under the radar because the radar isn’t tuned to detect “problem drinking.” Unless you’re taking swigs from a plastic bag, covered in filth, and muttering unintelligible sounds before passing out on a park bench, you’re fine.

To say drinking is a British norm is a behemoth understatement. It forms a fundamental part of British culture. Drinking is socializing, bonding, connecting. Exchanging horror stories from being 14 and getting pissed in a park with your mates on alcopops or whatever drink you managed to swipe from your parents’ liquor cabinet. Too many jagerbombs or sambuca shots in cramped, sweaty basement clubs in Dalston or Shoreditch and waking up with a new bruise, wondering how the hell you got home. Colleagues participating in self-inflicted humiliation rituals after one too many at the work Christmas party.

Summer is a season-long celebration in itself because the sun is to be worshiped, and our sacrifice is the first five-ish hours of the next day as we nurse our hangovers with water, coffee, and Berocca. And no matter how many awkwardly constructed team-bonding days a company pays for, the pub is where the real networking and relationship building is solidified. It’s in British art, music, film, and TV. Our soap operas show pubs as a place of communion.

Drinking courses through the veins of British society. It’s beyond the idea of being an acceptable vice. It is the standard to drink. It is abnormal to abstain. You’re an anomaly if you say no to booze.

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If that’s “normal,” what happens when you get sober?

What’s it like being a sober millennial Londoner? Well, it evolves as I grow as a person and become more secure in my sobriety, but I can’t lie: it can feel tricky to navigate against the cultural landscape in which I reside and was a part of for a hell of a long time.

When I’m asked how I socialized in the first few months of my sobriety (I’m 351 days sober at time of writing so still early days), I say simply, “I didn’t.” I missed outings, occasions, birthdays etc. I was far too insecure in my sobriety to be in the type of environments that my drinking previously thrived in so becoming a recluse felt safer. This isn’t the attractive, I-can-do-anything-sober-that-I-did-drunk messaging that I see on social media, but it’s the stone-cold-sober (lol) truth.

I knew all it would take was the right alignment of settings, people, senses triggered, and bam. I’d be back to endless shots, heavy pours, and the mental disarray that alcohol attracts like bluebottle flies to lumps of shit.

Did my choice to be an anti-social, hermit-type character negatively impact friendships? Absolutely. Unfortunately, some friendships broke down completely. It was a very confronting time that left me riddled with doubts about myself.

Am I being selfish? Am I indulging in dramatics by choosing sobriety? Was my drinking that bad? Am I a narcissistic bitch? But it also made me think: “If a friendship ceases to exist rather than pause or change because of my newfound sobriety, then were we actually friends to begin with or just drinking buddies? Was I just needed for something I can’t give anymore because of my new Amiga Senora Boundaries?”

Ultimately, immersing myself in my solitary sober bubble of radical honesty meant hiding from reality was not an option anymore. I couldn’t slip into escapism via the bottom of a shot glass. It was the mental equivalent of a triathlon but with the added sadism of rehashing past traumas, questioning my entire being, and learning what being intentional in my thoughts and actions really meant.

It was crawling through sand before walking through mud before running in a storm, but the discomfort from dissecting my inner monologue was a sign I was on my way to peace. It’s like the age-old saying: Nothing grows in the comfort zone.

I was feeling my feels and thinking my thoughts instead of drinking them away. I found that feeling of internal omnipresence leads to peace and breathes confidence into the fabric of my being that allows me to stand tall, no matter where I am, and to trust myself. I am obviously still a fallible human being who has discovered how to be a somewhat functioning adult, but that characterization of myself no longer brings me shame, because I accept where I am and understand where I can go and where I can grow.

Almost a year into sobriety, things are changing.

Now that I’m almost a year into my sobriety, I have loosened the reins and allowed myself to venture out into the world where the penchant for alcohol flows as freely throughout the city as the verbal diarrhea from the lips of the intoxicated (no judgment; just facts).

I listen to the music that I used to drink and dance to, but now I dance ferociously to the beat, enjoy every note, and marvel at the musical artistry or mere nostalgia. I smell alcohol on the breath of friends who begin to slur their words and repeat conversations, at which point I excuse myself and head home to a cup of tea, chocolate, and a true crime documentary.

The nonchalance with which “I need a drink” or “I want to get drunk” is proclaimed during meetings no longer triggers hot flashes from the immense awkwardness I’d feel from the expectation of saying, “Me too.”

Traversing the cultural zeitgeist of alcohol as a sober millennial in London has required a level of security and confidence that I never thought I’d be capable of possessing and never would possess if sobriety didn’t come knocking and if I didn’t let it in.

I refer to myself as a recovering alcoholic. I understand the less-than-desirable connotations of this term, but it provides the logic that reminds me that I can’t afford a slip because a slip will become a plunge and I will drown. Being a recovering alcoholic means I can never touch alcohol ever again. In a place like London, I hold “recovering alcoholic” close to my chest like an ace in my sleeve, especially when the cravings hit hard.

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Your turn!

We’d love for you to share in the comments:

• Does the place where you live, work, and play make sobriety easier or harder?
• Have your friendships and work relationships changed since getting sober?

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