Everything I’ve Learned From Going Sober At 21

Liam Lawson

9 min readOct 8, 2020

“SsssSsober?

At 21?

SSssSober?

Why?”

My friends asked.

Good question.

I don’t fully understand why I’ve went sober for 10 months and why I’ll be sober for another 2 but I’ll do my best to explain.

Upbringing

I was born in Scotland. The land of haggis, shit weather and rampant alcoholism. If you were born in the UK then the following paragraph will make complete sense to you.

From a young age you’re thrust into a society that accepts and even celebrates the alcoholic culture that we’ve created. Turning 15 and drinking 2 litre bottles of strongbow up a hill with your pals is more than common practice - it’s a right of passage. Establishing status amongst your peers depends on if you drink, how much you can drink and how often you drink. It’s cool.

As you progress up the ranks of alcoholism, you’ll inevitably reach the ripe old age of 17. This is the time of fake ID’s, club nights and the ability to drink on a whim with your new-found golden ticket. From 18–20 your youthful naivety, unadulterated confidence and bottle of rum will lead you through those peak teenage years where everyone’s trying to fuck everyone and you’re trying to fuck everything. The opportunities to drink at this age are rife. Gaffs, Uni gaffs, pub nights, club nights, 18th’s, 21sts, proms, balls, weddings, birthdays & more.

& more is important

In Scotland, alcoholism is embedded so deeply in the culture that such occasions as “It’s over 15 degrees outside” or “It’s a Thursday” warrant excessive binges. We’ll take anything for an excuse to binge and if there’s anyone that knows how to binge properly; it’s the Scots (and the Irish). We drink a lot, often and for not much reason other than because we feel like it.

Why?

The weird part about this all is that it doesn’t seem weird when you grow up with it. You’re just born into a society that views this behaviour as completely normal. No-one ever questions it, it’s just the done thing. This is where I think the issue lies — we let these automatic behaviours control us. It’s like we’re on autoplay and someones ate the pause button.

Before I go on to explain my personal experience I’d like to take a second to tell you that I don’t think drinking at a young age is bad. It can actually be a good thing in the long run.

Let me elaborate, in our culture most people start drinking at the age of 15, this means we get most of those years of excessive drinking out the way nice and early. By the time you’ve got to 21, you won’t drink in the same way you did at 16. No more whiteying (Scottish word for sick) half-processed dark fruits up in some random cunts garden. You’ve matured; at least a little.

There’s anecdotal evidence to prove that this is a good thing. In my experience with those from different countries with drinking ages that are 21 & over, I’ve found that they’re more likely to get embarrassingly drunk and less likely to be able to handle their alcohol. Sure, some in the US probably start drinking at a young age but the ease of access to booze in the UK assists in the normalisation of heavy drinking from a young age.

Young people are going to drink any way. It’s a fact. I did it and fucking loved every single second of it. I boozed as much as the next person and vividly remember the 13 day bender for my Uni freshers week. Unfortunately, I also vividly remember the illness and depleted bank account that followed too. Don’t take my account as gospel though, I’m sure if we can get some Scots to comment they’ll put my endeavours to shame and call me a fuckin’ shitebag.

What I’m trying to say is it may be a good idea to get the heavy drinking out the way nice n’ early. This way at least leaves opportunity for a healthy, productive adult life.

My Personal Experience

My personal experience started as of December 2019. At this point, I was 20 years old and feeling rather dejected with life. Nothing really wrong but I just wasn’t happy with the way things were and knew some things needed to change. To figure out what the issue was I decided to take a trip to Thurso by myself for New Years. I wanted to spend the New Years alone so I could understand myself and what I wanted.

This wasn’t an easy decision as all my mates from home were off to gaffs to have massive parties. I missed the gaffs and I missed my pals but ultimately I think I made the right decision by spending the New Years alone. It really gave me time and space to prioritise my life.

Reasoning

After New Years I came to the decision that for all of 2020 I wouldn’t booze. It wasn’t an easy decision as I knew I’d miss out on plans but I feel my decision making was sound. The reasons I decided to go sober for 2020 are as follows:

From the age of 15 I’d never realistically had a gap of more than 1 month where I’d not drank. I wanted to give myself a year out to truly understand why I drank and for what reason.
I wanted to see how much I relied on alcohol socially and wether I was as socially confident without it. I’m big into self-development so forcing myself into uncomfortable social situations without the aid of alcohol was exciting to me.
I wanted to have the most productive year possible and get involved in activities and routines that would actually improve me as a person. I took up meditation, dedicated myself to daily cold showers, began doing yoga multiple times a week, read before sleeping & worked on my business’.
I wanted to challenge myself to change my habits.

Challenges

With my solid reasoning in place I found it fairly easy to dedicate myself to sobriety. The only hard part so far was the first 2 or 3 months. This was difficult for a couple reasons.

A lot of my friends and acquaintances didn’t know I was undertaking this challenge and thus would be super surprised when I said I wasn’t drinking. Maybe 1 in 10 of these people would congratulate me and tell me they’d thought of doing something similar. The 9/10 majority would egg me on to drink, buy me a drink, tell me reasons I should drink, tell me how much I was missing out etc. I didn’t mind it so much as I constantly reminded myself that this challenge was about me and no-one else.
I did genuinely crave alcohol sometimes. The worst times were during pre-drinks when everyone else was starting to get buzzing for the night. You can see cunts start to boogie to some music, other start pouring shots and everyone starts talking about how excited they were for a night out. Watching the excitement ramp up was definitely the hardest part. You cant share in the common intoxication and buzz, you’re on a slightly different wavelength and that’s slightly disappointing.
It was a new routine that I wasn’t used to. My weekends were now spent productively climbing hills, doing work + bettering myself but it wasn’t easy to just switch my routines to something so different.

Following Months

After the first 3 months, when everyone knows and respects your sobriety, it gets fairly easy. You start to get into the routine of being productive, you notice the benefits of being sober and you look forward to experiences regardless of the inclusion of alcohol. Even occasions such as gaffs that are dominated by alcohol are equally as exciting as before. It’s pretty much plain sailing from here on out as long as you have some willpower and remind yourself of your reasons. I may have benefited from the onset of COVID-19 as this meant less social occasions were occurring and thus less reasons to drink. I’ve undoubtedly decided to go sober in what may be the best year for it. Everyone has to socially distance anyways, parties aren’t happening & pretty much everyone is on a health kick. It’s been a perfect storm.

Main Takeaways

Having nearly completed my year sober I’ve got some takeaways from the experience that I’d like to share with you:

The thing I miss most is a beer in the shower. A shower beer. Yes.
People quickly change from taking the piss to supporting you on your journey of sobriety. Once people see that you’re taking decisive action, they usually get on board.
You learn what social situations you actually like and what you just tolerate because there’s alcohol involved. Before I wasn’t able to discern between genuinely enjoyable social situations and boring ones because there was always alcohol involved and they were therefore always fun. After attending different events I now know exactly what I enjoy and what I don’t.
You will go home early and that’s not a bad thing. When everyone else is boozing into the wee hours of the morning, you’re tucked up in bed and ready for your 7am alarm the next morning. More often you’ll be up getting your day started when others are just heading to bed. This feels fucking amazing, especially when you realise this used to be you. When you compare yourself to who you were last year you realise you’ve already got up, exercised, done work, had a shower, made lunch & read before you’d even began to drag your hungover self to the kitchen for a glass of water last year, it feels good.
Physically everything looks a lot better. My skin looks better than it ever has, I’ve lost a bunch of excess weight, my livers undoubtedly healthier, I feel fitter, my gums — which used to bleed — do so no longer & I feel fantastic.
Mentally, I feel sharper and better suited to tackle the challenges in my daily life
You’re able to form habits and stick to them. Before, I’d start to try and form a meditation habit for example, but by the time I reached the weekend I’d stop because I was too hungover to keep it going.
You don’t miss hangovers whatsoever. If you’re anything like me and get hangovers like you’re 80 then you’ll welcome the absent nature of them. Fresh Sundays are incredible.
You understand why you drink. For me, I drank because I wanted to enjoy my time with my friends. I’ve now realised that I don’t actually need alcohol to make most occasions enjoyable.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve gained a lot of insight into the subject over the past year so please feel free to ask me any questions about my experience. I truly think that taking a year to go sober has done me the world of good. I feel healthier, fitter, happier. That’s the real takeaway for me here. In those 3 categories i’m doing better than I was last year and that’s not to be taken for granted. Being happier is the big thing for me and that undoubtedly proves the success of the experiment.

I know that not only sobriety contributed to my happiness this year, but also the forming of healthy habits such as meditation, yoga + cold showers. All of these things in tangent has lead to me having an incredibly happy and somewhat successful year as a human being on this planet. Going forward, I’m going to establish a new relationship with alcohol; one in which I don’t rely on it but instead use it as an extra treat on special occasions. This experiment hasn’t taught me that alcohol is the devil and it needs to be banned. Definitely not. I think we just need to establish a better relationship with alcohol, one in which we can choose when and why we drink, one in which we’re in control.

I strongly suggest you try an extensive period of time without alcohol so that you can fundamentally understand the nature of your relationship with it. If you have any questions for me please don’t hesitate to comment or e-mail me directly at lawsonbusiness101@gmail.com.

Yours Honestly,