I took my first sip of alcohol when I was 14. Well, that’s not strictly true. When I was younger I had, on a handful of occasions, been allowed to have half a sherry glass of wine with dinner on very special occasions like Christmas which always made me feel very grown up. But I was 14 when I had what I call my ‘first drink’ with the intention of getting drunk.

I was listening to a recovery podcast recently, and the speaker described her relationship to alcohol with a phrase that struck me - for her, alcohol was the lover that had turned into the liar. I instantly connected to these words because I could see and feel my story in them too. For many many years, I used to joke with myself that the most significant relationship I was in was with my bottle of wine.

Today I’m celebrating 7 days without alcohol which isn’t a massive milestone in itself (I’ve had much longer periods of sobriety before) but regardless, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. I haven’t had 7 consecutive days of sobriety for over a year at least, and honestly, I was struggling for a long long time to put the wine down.

They say that starting something new is always the hardest part right? The first day of embracing a new habit. The first shaky step into an unknown future. The first few words of the first blog post - hopefully the first of many to come! Whatever it is…it’s always fucking tough to just get started.