Getting Sober at Seventy with Tribe member Ros

 

I always love featuring a Tribe Member on the podcast but this week it’s particularly special as Tribe member Ros is celebrating her first Soberversary.

All of those Sober Firsts are important – the first time we socialise without alcohol, the first time we go on holiday

Even Sober Packing (!) – it seems to be a thing for some of our members and of course the Soberversary is a culmination of all of those Sober Firsts

A whole year of sobriety is enough for most people to nail the “not drinking” part – and then to start reconfiguring their lives – creating a life they don’t want to escape from!

I often say that if we really want to stop drinking we have to throw the book at it – and Ros is a fantastic example of the results you get if you do that 

Ros had been drinking for decades and knew that she would have to make a change so she joined the Tribe.

She turned up on Day one – looking wobbly and tearful at our weekly Zoom Café.  She came to Zoom every single week and it was such a joy to see her getting stronger and looking happier as time went by.  Ros put the work in and as a result she only ever had One Day One..

She used the Tribe Roadmap and worked her way systematically through our 7 steps – she got connected, she did the prep, she did the work and then she moved into healing her body and mind. 

 

In this Episode

• Ros came from a non drinking household and apart from the odd half a pint of beer in the pub with her friends her teenage years were alcohol free
• As she got into her 20’s Ros left the UK and began a career in tourism – where drinking was very much part of the work hard/play hard culture.
• She began to drink regularly and with enthusiasm
• Ros lived in Mexico for a couple of years and discovered that there was a drink that was stronger than tequila – strong enough to put her in hospital in fact
• As she says “if it was there I would drink it”
• Like many of us Ros was into healthy eating and going to the gym but no way was she going to relinquish the booze!
• In fact she was blissfully unaware of the toxicity of alcohol and had no idea that the “low risk” limits of alcohol are one and a half bottles of wine a week.
• In fact the WHO now recommend that if we want to be healthy we don’t drink any alcohol at all
• I could do a whole episode on the toxicity of alcohol but let me just give you Russell Brand’s brilliant answer when people ask him why he’s not drinking – he simply says “that stuffs flammable you know” ;-)
• Thanks to our workshop Ros is now more than aware of just how much damage alcohol does
• She lost both her sisters to cancer and reflected back to the time she spent in a hospice with one of her sisters – there were lots of health experts coming in to talk about healthy eating but not one word about alcohol!
• Not a word about the fact that alcohol is linked to 7 different types of cancer and that drinking more than 3 small glasses of wine a week raises your risk of breast cancer by 15%
• We both agreed with the research that says it takes most people about a decade to recognise that we have a problem – and then to actually do something about it
• We both wasted far too long setting rules around our drinking and trying to moderate!
• Ros recognised that she needed help about 10 years before joining Tribe Sober but once she did everything changed for her
• She felt such a sense of relief that when she met other people who had the same “problem” with alcohol she realised that she was not alone in this
• If you’re feeling alone in your struggle then please check out Tribe Sober – we are here for you and nothing makes us happier than helping people to ditch the booze and change their life
• Ros took all of our advice to heart and accepted that sobriety is not something we do “on the side” or “tinker round the edges” – we have to make it a priority, forget the people pleasing and learn to put ourselves first
• Ros coped with her social life by taking our advice to “be an anthropologist” – learn to be an observer and watch how people change as the drinking progresses – no need to judge anyone, come from a place of curiosity
• She got through her Sober Firsts, taking pleasure in every achievement and sharing them with us at the Zoom Café – she even did a Sober Cruise!
• We talked about the value of the Annual Trackers we use – although it might seem a bit low tech to have a piece of paper divided into 365 squares it works better than the trackers on your phone which just take you back to zero if you have a slip up
• With our trackers you colour in every single alcohol free day so that you can observe your Sober Stretches and see that they are getting longer
• As Ros didn’t have a single slip up she took great pleasure in colouring in her tracker and then posting it on our chatgroup on Screenshot Saturday
• Our Annual trackers give perspective and keep us motivated – if you would like one just email me – janet@tribesober.com
• As she enters her second year of sobriety Ros is planning to relax into it – it’s the new normal and her husband is also sober.
• After a few months of watching Ros her husband decided to do our Sober Spring Challenge to keep her company – and he’s been sober ever since!
  
  More Info

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• If you would like a free copy of our “Annual Tracker” or our e-book 66 Days to Sobriety, please email janet@tribesober.com.
• If you would like to come to our Saturday afternoon Zoom Cafe as a guest and meet our community, just email janet@tribesober.com.

Episode Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by the Tribe Sober Membership Program.  If you want to change your relationship with alcohol then sign up today
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