Planning for Sober Success
I have recently realised that I am rather lacking in a plan for the next 5 years. When you are drinking, I know that thinking about the next 5 days can be a struggle, let alone contemplating where you might be in 5 years. For me though a plan is a must. Without a structure […]
The Effect Alcohol Has on Your Personal Growth
When I first started helping women quit alcohol I spent a huge amount of time and effort on the practical elements of giving up. It’s the information you know by heart if you’ve been trying to quit for a while: Practical Tips Commit to a Day One Set clear goals Commit to a certain number of […]
I Gave Up Alcohol – My Before and After
Work with me – Find out more about one to one coaching HERE. Much love always, Jules xxx
Books I Recommend to Support Your Sobriety
In this blog post I will share with you the books I recommend to support your sobriety. Reading books is one of the great joys of my life and even more so since I stopped drinking. Being able to fully focus on a novel or a personal development book since being sober has enabled me […]
Find out how a basket can help you with your cravings
When your cravings hit you, in that moment, they can feel overwhelming and like you will never be able to get through the feeling without giving in. The most important thing to remember about cravings is that they pass. On average it takes about 10-15 minutes or so. Of course, the challenge is what do […]
You CAN Give Up Alcohol
“I can’t do it!” Of all the phrases I hear in my coaching sessions, this is the one I hear most often. When you experience a day that is filled with so much stress, doing and overwhelm you will probably open a bottle of wine and the mental torture begins. “You see, you’re useless.” […]
How To Silence Your Internal Drinking Voice
When you begin questioning your relationship with alcohol it’s likely you start listening to the voice inside your head. You probably started out by lying to yourself: YOU: “You’re drinking too much.” DRINKING YOU: “No I’m not, the woman next door puts way more empties in the recycling than I do and she has a […]
A Soul-led Approach to Quitting Alcohol
Physical Harms Alcohol is bad for your body – surprise, surprise. Colon cancer, breast cancer, high blood pressure, inflammation, heart disease, liver disease, ulcers, dementia, osteoporosis – you know these things and yet you may still be drinking. It isn’t hard to find information on the internet that will inform you in graphic detail just […]
Future You Guided Visualisation
Be guided to your future sober life with this 15 minute guided visualisation. Sign up to my FREE newsletter and get access to more freebies here: http://eepurl.com/dmwmHP
Alcohol, The Menopause and Your Second Life
Are you struggling with your menopause symptoms or wondering if alcohol is responsible for how you’re feeling? Symptom Checker Check out these symptoms of menopause and see how many you identify with: Hot flushes Weight Gain Fatigue Bloating Night Sweats Mood Changes Sleep Problems Nausea Irregular Periods Joint & Muscle Pain Itchy Skin Hair Loss […]
How To Have A Fabulous Sober Holiday
Holidays are a time that we should all look forward to but when you are trying to quit alcohol it can be a minefield. Despite all of the good work you’ve done, you think you might struggle to stay sober and the pressure to drink will get to you. It doesn’t have to be that […]
The Only 10 Things You Need To Know About How To Stop Drinking For Good
Trying to imagine life without alcohol when you’ve been drinking for most of the last 20 years can be almost impossible to imagine. I know I put off giving up for years because I just couldn’t imagine how I would spend my evenings if I wasn’t watching my favourite movies for the 5th time with […]
Is Life Better Without Alcohol?
When you are contemplating giving up alcohol, it’s entirely natural to wonder if life is better without it. I get asked this question a lot in coaching sessions and I always laugh in response – not because I’m making fun of anyone but because ‘better’ is such an insipid word to describe life without alcohol. […]
6 Tips To Help You Stay Sober When You Are Socialising And Networking
The pressure to drink with friends or at networking events can be immense but what if you want to stop drinking? Often most of the thought goes into where to go, what to wear, what to eat and how to get there and back but not into the drinking aspect of the event. This is […]
Female Identity – Who Are You If You’re Sober?
Who am I? It’s the question of human existence that could never produce an answer that we would all agree on. If you have a shred of self-awareness, you may ask the question more often than others, but even if you ask yourself on a regular basis, you’re unlikely to get a clear answer – […]
Can You Achieve Spontaneous Sobriety?
I am part of a small group of lovely ladies that run their own businesses and we support each other and help with advice etc. We get together once a month (ish) and last night we went out for dinner for my birthday. We went to a fabulous restaurant down on Newcastle’s Quayside called Khai […]
How Long After You Stop Drinking Does Your Body Heal?
When you are considering giving up alcohol it’s important to know how your body will react and how long it will take to heal. Below is generally what happens when you stop drinking. Is it the same for everyone? It’s important to note that any of the symptoms and improvements I’ve listed below can, and […]
8 Tips To Help You Have A Fab Sober Holiday
In my membership group recently, one of my Sobersistas posted a comment about her holiday fears. Here’s what she shared: “We’re off on a big family holiday in a few weeks and sad as sounds I have a real FOMO going on! Totally irrational but it’s there. I think it’s because all the adults (7 […]
How A Marmalade Jar Can Support Your Sobriety Journey
This time of year is a great time for New Years Resolutions and generally getting clear about how you want the coming year to be. Without goals you will definitely end up somewhere at the end of the year, but without goals you could end up somewhere you didn’t intend to be! If you haven’t […]
What to expect when you stop drinking
Whenever you stop eating, drinking or taking anything that you’ve been having regularly, it’s logical that your body will go through a period of re-balancing while it returns to normal. With alcohol it’s no different. If you are considering giving up alcohol for good or for a short period of time, when you stop you […]
10 Tips to Help You Have a Joyful Sober Christmas
There is no other time of the year that has the capacity to fill us with a mixture of joy, happiness and absolute dread. Christmas and Thanksgiving can be laden with such massive expectations that we can end up worrying and whittling our way to the big day in a frantic hurry, chasing the perfect […]
5 Reasons You Are NOT An Alcoholic
Do you drink alcohol every night or most nights of the week? Do you get drunk regularly? Have you started to feel that alcohol is affecting your health, relationships and mental health? Do you think it would be too difficult to give up alcohol? Are you fearful of telling someone close that you think you […]
8 Ways To Deal With The Pressure To Drink Alcohol
When I was thinking about giving up alcohol there were a number of things that I thought about before making the commitment to liberating my life from it completely. Could I stick to it? – Not one of my strongest character traits to date! Would my social life disappear? – I had a pretty limited social life […]
5 Obstacles To Giving Up Alcohol and How to Overcome Them
I did a poll amongst my friends recently and asked them what their biggest obstacle was to giving up alcohol for good. Some of the replies where obviously tongue in cheek, like my friend Gary who answered “I require alcohol in order to cope with people telling me how wonderful life is without it”. In the […]
Why you’re not struggling to give up alcohol
Over the years I have seen many comments and had lots of conversations about the journey to sobriety being described as a struggle. ‘The struggle is real’ has almost become a sobriety mantra, as if you can’t give up unless you accept and embrace ‘the struggle’ and grit your teeth every moment of every day […]
Why I’m not here to help you give up alcohol
I know if you’ve been around Sobersistas for a while it might seem that the statement above is a bit surprising. The business is called ‘SOBERsistas’ after all. Yes, if you came here to give up alcohol then then are lots of resources and support available to you to help you achieve that. BUT Bigger […]
The One Thing Women Can Do To Give Up Alcohol For Good
I’m in the sober business so I read a lot about sobriety, giving up alcohol and also spend a little time on Facebook Groups – sometimes contributing and sometimes lurking. After a few months of doing this I noticed something that I think is a little odd. Many women are struggling with alcohol to varying degrees […]
If You Want To Be Sober You MUST Be Willing To Change.
One of the hardest things about giving up alcohol is coming to terms with the fact that your life will need to change. Your daily routines, your social life, your relationships, your attitude to work – in one way or another something about all of these things will change when you become confidently, comfortably, happily […]
How To Tell Other People You’re Not Drinking
I started Sobersistas a little while ago and I have been genuinely humbled by the wonderful women who have joined me on this quest to develop a better life without alcohol. Recently, a wonderfully feisty and passionate Sobersista started her post with this opening paragraph: Rant “This rant is in response to posts I’ve seen […]
What to do when you want to give up but end up drinking more!
This week I asked my lovely members to suggest blog topics for me to write about and one Sobersista asked this: Why is it that coming to the realisation that you need to stop makes you drink even more?! Unfortunately, there isn’t one easy answer to this question but I will suggest a number of […]
Alcohol And My Depression
I thought seriously about taking my own life once. Twice actually. It was a long time ago and I had Post Natal Depression. The Wrong Bus However, no matter how black and endless life seemed at that moment, the thought of never seeing my children again stopped me from going through with it. As I […]
5 Easy Ways to Help You Change Your Drinking Habits
I came across a video today about establishing new habits that really made me think and so I have adapted the advice to help you with those habits you have that often trigger you to drink. Environment Design How you have your environment designed dictates much of your behaviour. If your wine glasses are displayed […]
25 Things You Can Give Up To Be Happier
I have been studying the field of personal development for over 15 years. It started as a desperate chase to solve my unhappiness with just about everything in my life. I believed that my lack of a significant other, my miserable time at work, my cripplingly low self-esteem and my lack of confidence, could all […]
What Was Done To You/What You Did
The past has always been somewhere I have looked at with an uncomfortable gaze. Carrying around my unhappy childhood with me every day until I got sober meant that whenever I examined it closely, it simply made me a few degrees more miserable than I already was. So, I carried the pain of the past […]
Why Willpower Won’t Help You In Your Quest For Sobriety
For so many women the decision to free themselves from alcohol is often an act of desperation. They realise it’s negative affect on their life can no longer be tolerated. Is that you? A Typical Struggle Did you reach your decision in a fit of temper, boiled up from the heat of so many hangovers, […]
Meet Your Inner Mentor
Connect with your inner mentor. We are all so much wiser than we think we are but alcohol gets in the way of us accessing that inner wisdom so that we can make good decisions for ourselves. I’ve recorded a guided meditation to help you meet your inner mentor so you can get the answers […]
The One Thing That Is Stopping You From Giving Up Alcohol
How long have you been thinking about giving up alcohol? Has it been day’s, week’s, months or even years? Have you had spells of sobriety, loved it but then found yourself drinking again and feel like you’re back to square one? One of the conversations I have in just about every one to one coaching […]
4 Ways You Can Deal With Your Indecision To Quit Alcohol For Good
When you’re thinking of giving up drinking, a future without it can seem daunting. I know when I was thinking of giving up the fear of failure stopped me from taking action but once I made the decision the freedom I felt was so wonderful. Trying to imagine your sober future is bound to make […]
Sobersistas Stories – Rachel M
I love Rachel’s story about her journey to sobriety because I know it’s typical of many Sobersistas in the membership group. Read her story about how she overcame her weekend binge drinking. Rachel M, Somerset, UK Joined Sobersistas: December 2017 First Post “Does anyone else find their friends really unsupportive. I have a great bunch […]
Break the Rules
A friend recently shared a post on Facebook about a conversation between a therapist and client where she was advised to ‘break the rules’. The main idea behind this was that in suffering the overwhelm of ‘should do’s’ and ‘must do’s’, breaking the rules is an acceptable way forward. The advice went further to say […]
VIDEO: How to make the decision to quit drinking for good
Here’s a very quick video to help you make the decision to quit drinking for good. There is a really simple way to make your decision to give up alcohol stick for good. Watch below to find out how. Much love always, Jules xxx
The Science of Alcohol
Have you ever read a bit of well written science and had your mind blown? I did this week and I have a lovely Sobersista to thank for it! When I first became sober, the emotional and spiritual impact on me was so profound that it never crossed my mind to think about the science […]
Why You Constantly Fail at Moderating Your Drinking
‘Moderation in all things’ is a well known saying that can be credited to the Ancient Greek philosophers and Oscar Wilde in more recent times. I’ve always thought the word moderation had a dullness to it that made me never want to moderate – ever. To me it suggests that feeling of ‘almost but not […]
Don’t hide behind the busyness shield
One of the things I see on a regular basis is when women use keeping busy as a means of staying sober. It’s a wonderful thing to realise just how much energy you have when you first get comfortable with your sobriety. Here’s some of the things I see women enjoying once they get sober: […]
I know you are in there
I used to drink a lot. I thought I could handle it. I did handle it. Sort of. I would drink just enough to forget why I was drinking but not so much that it would disrupt the next day. Even living by the sea in Spain didn’t inspire me to take it easy when […]
Sobersistas Stories – Sammy J
Sammy J, Birmingham, UK. Joined Sobersistas: September 2017 First Post “This is how I’m feeling and where I’m at!!!!! …. I have succumbed and I’ve bought myself some (lots of) wine tonight, and I feel guilty, but am enjoying it. I know I’m going to feel like crap tomorrow. I am going to commit to […]
Sobriety the Easy Way
I’ve been running Sobersistas since 2017 and one thing I have learned that goes to the heart of giving up alcohol is the mindset you bring to it. Finding Myself – Not! In 2012 I decided to go travelling at the age of 49. I sold everything I owned, apart from a backpack of clothes, […]
How to deal with those sugar cravings when you stop drinking
I met Nathalie Sansonetti recently when I engaged her services to work on some of my own health issues. Her work has been transformational and I am delighted to share this exclusive article that she wrote just for Sobersistas. You can visit Nathalie’s website and learn more about her services here: New Leaf Nutrition The […]
Becoming Sober in Relationships: How Do I Talk To My Partner?
I’m delighted to share Michelle April’s guest blog here on Sobersistas. Michelle is an Individual, Couple and Family Counsellor, Art Therapist and group facilitator with a private practice in Ottawa, Ontario. … A question came up on the Sobersistas Facebook page that piqued my interest. I will paraphrase here: “I feel that I cannot tell […]
Plucking Your Nipple Hair and Your Cancer Risk
In running Sobersistas I suppose it’s inevitable that some conversations we have might raise the eyebrows a little. This week’s discussion with my friend Sarah about nipple hair was definitely one of them! Thank you to Sarah at Simple Happy Life for giving me permission to share. SMLXL Regardless of whether you pluck, shave […]
The Truth About The Wine Witch
I hate the ‘Wine Witch’ I really dislike stating that I ‘hate’ anything. Hate is a draining emotion that is only useful if it galvanises us into action. If you hate poverty enough then you will commit time and money to eradicate it. The same goes for all the injustices in the world. If one […]
Sober Sex
When we drink we are often chasing feelings of love and connection. The alcohol advertising industry tells us that this is what drinking gives us. They tell us that when we drink we will have romantic moments where we can be vulnerable and connected to our partners and that the lubrication it offers will bring […]
30 Easy Ways to Deal With Alcohol Bullies
If you’ve ever given up alcohol for any length of time it’s likely that you’ve been on the receiving end of the alcohol bully. In my experience they fall into two main types – the Pushers and the Disblievers. The Pushers The Pushers are those ‘friends’ who, despite knowing you’ve given up, insist on doing […]
It’s time to get over our ridiculous obsession with alcohol
Before I went to India for the first time in 2008, I always had an opinion about everything. Drinking made me unbelievably judgemental. I would regularly pass judgement on anyone that failed to meet the high standards and values I expected everyone else to live by. Anyone was fair game. At the same time, I […]
It’s okay not to be okay
One thing the pandemic has given me is the time to discover new things. Recently, having watched everything I wanted to on Netflix I started searching for something different. I love sci-fi so I started there and discovered a Korean drama, kdrama for short, called Alice. It was about time travel and I thought I […]
Sobersistas Top 3 Questions Answered
I’ve been running Sobersistas Closed Group for over two years now and I’ve noticed that some of the same questions pop up on a regular basis so I thought I would tackle the top three. Let’s start with an easy one: Question 1 – I’ve just given up – why am I eating so much […]
Sobersistas Stories – Sarah K
Sarah K, London, United Kingdom Joined Sobersistas: January 2018 Why did you decide to give up alcohol? It has been on my mind for quite a time. A lot of my time was spent in bed recovering from drinking and my hangovers were beginning to last for 2 to 3 days. I was no longer […]
Journal prompt: I am struggling to stop drinking because
I put this in the group to see what obstacles Sobersistas commonly struggle with when thinking of giving up alcohol. Here’s my take: Trump (aka Politics/The World) Have you ever tried not watching the news for a week? It’s incredibly liberating. It’s also incredibly irritating when you go back to it a week later and […]
12 Ways to Stop People Pleasing When You’re Drinking
It’s such a lovely thing to make other people happy isn’t it? But what if it’s getting in the way of you giving up alcohol? To know that you’ve done something that’s pleased another person is so good for the soul. Thoughtfulness is one of those human traits that shows us that there really are […]
