The 1000 Days Sober Blog

Blog Posts From 1000 Days Sober

How to Make Choices That Will Help You Stop Drinking

If you’re considering making a significant change in your life, like altering your re...

Mar 24, 2022

Effect And Cause

Yvonne is addicted to alcohol. Her relationship with her husband, Pete, is dead. There is no ...

Feb 10, 2022

Are You Tired of Being Manipulated?

"Men often manipulated their women through physical and financial dominance and threat. Women oft...

Feb 07, 2022

Do You Give Up Easily?

Have you ever heard of an Upper Limit Problem (ULP)? If not, check out my interview wit...

Feb 04, 2022

Throw Away Your Old Alcohol Beliefs!

I'm in pain. I'm suffering. A storm of locusts magnifies both because nobody else underst...

Feb 03, 2022

Why It’s Not Enough to Just Stop Drinking Alcohol

When I became someone that doesn’t drink alcohol more than a decade ago, everything changed...

Feb 02, 2022

Is Drinking Alcohol Necessary?

At STRIVE, we pride ourselves on being the place that unites people who no longer drink alcohol a...

Feb 01, 2022

The Path of Least Resistance

Last night, during an event called ‘The Illuminated Man’, the host asked the guest sp...

Jan 31, 2022

The Lion and The Mouse

I became someone that doesn’t drink alcohol after reading The Easyway to Control Alcohol by...

Jan 30, 2022

Harry The Hummingbird

When I woke up, the first person I thought of was my Mum. It’s my birthday, and it&rs...

Jan 29, 2022

WandaVision, Choice & Alcohol

The processing of shame is one of the primary reasons we don’t see more people join...

Jan 28, 2022

I Want my Children to...

I want my children to be honest, authentic, and grateful. I want them to support themselv...

Dec 10, 2021

Who Else Wants to be Sad, Angry and a Tad Depressed?

Who Else Wants to be Sad, Angry and a Tad Depressed? I saw this poster while having a wh...

Dec 09, 2021

Alcohol Helps Me Sleep…Does It?

Alcohol Helps Me Sleep…Does It? Many of my clients believe alcohol helps them sleep. S...

Dec 04, 2021

Handling Your Partners Blues 

Long term relationships merge nervous systems. When your partner feels something, you feel it.&nb...

Dec 02, 2021

They get drunk, have s3x, then pretend it never happened

I was reading Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel last night and wanted to share my thoughts/Esth...

Nov 30, 2021

Diamonds

When my first wife asked for a divorce, a barrage of emotions hit me like a passenger seat airbag...

Nov 24, 2021

The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum The symphony strings tug at my heart when I see a STRIVER stopping the work once ...

Nov 23, 2021

The Profound Mirror

The Profound Mirror In my review of my recent dental appointment, I was going to complai...

Oct 28, 2021

To The Person Who Can’t Seem to Get Started

To The Person Who Can’t Seem to Get Started On the eve of becoming someone t...

Oct 14, 2021

4 Ways of Shifting From Drama to Consciousness

The STRIVE Method aims to help you find the power and unused resources WITHIN YOU because once yo...

Oct 06, 2021

Sarcasm: A Medium Form of Anger

Sarcasm My queen is full of shrapnel. We are slowly removing them, shard by shard, ...

Sep 01, 2021

How to take a giant step towards controlling alcohol without taking...

It only cost $50. My wife, Liza, asked me to join her. It was another...

May 21, 2021

Why beginners struggle with alcohol cravings...

I have this client. Let's called him Julian. Julian recently celebrated...

May 20, 2021

I Didn't Have VD, Honest...

Did you know that there is a VD clinic in Ayia Napa? Luckily there is, and even luckier,...

May 19, 2021

How New Order Helped me Quit Alcohol

I like New Order, who doesn’t right? I love 'Blue Monday'. But it...

May 19, 2021

How to experience anxiety without reaching for the bottle

My daughter Zia’s skipping along the pavement, looking every inch the perfect Dorothy Gale ...

May 04, 2021

The Question: “What will I do when I lose my friends once I stop dr...

Thomas asks, “What will I do when I lose my friends once I stop drinking alcohol?&r...

Apr 26, 2021

Emotions & Self-Awareness

As a drinker, I had limited self-awareness. If the reverse were true, I would not have been a d...

Apr 22, 2021

Sunk Costs

At times during the end of my railway career, I felt like a leper. When I walked into a room, p...

Apr 21, 2021

It Has Gone Wayward, Again

You wake up in the morning feeling unmotivated. Something's not quite right. You have che...

Apr 07, 2021

Finding A Deeper Meaning And Purpose Through Helping Others

During our darkest times, we struggle to find meaning in our existence. And every day, we...

Apr 06, 2021

Myself In The Mirror

Look at yourself in the mirror. Reflect on your image. What do you see? Do...

Apr 02, 2021

Chasing Rainbows And Unicorns

Chasing rainbows and unicorns is a child’s dream. You know unicorns are pretty des...

Apr 01, 2021

Becoming A Diamond

“Diamonds are made under pressure,” says Caroline Buchanan. And you’ve probab...

Mar 31, 2021

The Small Things

Now that you’ve courageously accepted perfectionism as a hindrance to your progression, i...

Mar 23, 2021

An Invisible Problem

We all have to be drunk in something to get us going in life--be it alcohol, gambling, work, th...

Mar 23, 2021

First Step of Letting Go of Perfectionism

It started like this: you had the idea of being detached from the habit you are genuinely aware...

Mar 23, 2021

Internal Pressure

Sometimes, even if you attempt to change, there will always be that immense feeling of relievin...

Mar 23, 2021

The Awareness Trap

You just want control of yourself again, and having this little conversation with yourself isn&...

Mar 23, 2021

Who is Pressuring You to Drink Alcohol?

Sometimes, even if you try to genuinely change, there will always be that immense feeling of re...

Mar 16, 2021

Selfish

Selfish How different would life be if we took the view that everyone came out of the womb des...

Mar 12, 2021

Kids

It's my turn to take Zia to bed, and as is standard, she wants her Mum. Immediately, she trigg...

Mar 11, 2021

Alienation

Thomas feels like an outsider in his family home. The children don't bother him, and hi...

Mar 10, 2021

Who Am I?

“Who Am I?” In creating his psychosocial integration theory, psychologist,...

Mar 08, 2021

Irony

I recently joined an online course and had to introduce myself. I told the group I helpe...

Mar 06, 2021

Life Sucks

You can inhale the perfume of a red rose, or you can burn it. Life’s what you make it. ...

Mar 05, 2021

The Cleaner

Johann Hari told Sam Harris that Gallup revealed approx. 80% of Americans didn’t like t...

Mar 04, 2021

Cake

I have never baked a cake. Baking a cake = hard work. I don’t eat cake these ...

Mar 02, 2021

In It

Laurie is a 1000 Days Sober coach.I remember she once posted this in the forum. "Here in thi...

Mar 01, 2021

Exhaustion

Another fantastic poem by Rupi Kaur in her collection The Sun and Her Flowers."This place mak...

Feb 05, 2021

Craters

Connor has a hole in his heart. It hasn’t stopped him turning into a c...

Feb 04, 2021

Judgments

My sweaty back itches against the roughed up wood of the garage door. The sun is tickling m...

Feb 03, 2021

Twelve

As I listen to Walk Like an Egyptian by The Bangles, I crack my knuckles, romanticise about...

Feb 02, 2021

The Lock-Up

I have ‘stuff’ in a lock-up in Cardiff. It could go the way of Notre Dame...

Jan 11, 2021

The Leaky Tap

I heard the sound of running water gushing from the tap behind me. I shook my...

Jan 11, 2021

Not Skid Row

The day I led Jude through Skid Row was not an auspicious moment. I heard his mother screaming ...

Jan 11, 2021

The Toothbrush

How could I forget to brush my teeth? I'm 45. I think? Maybe that...

Jan 06, 2021

Perspective

There’s an air of desperation when it comes to mulling over a period before tak...

Jan 02, 2021

Traffic Lights

A woman with three children stands at the edge of the kerb. The light is red. For a s...

Dec 21, 2020

The Arena

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man s...

Dec 12, 2020

Enabling

There's a scene in the 'Queen's Gambit,' where Beth and her stepmother, Alma, are in a hotel ro...

Dec 02, 2020

Without awareness, there is no free choice

I played football on Sunday mornings and then went to the pub to drink all day, before stumblin...

Oct 13, 2020

Failure

The STRIVE Method: Failure Over the next few months, you will receive a series of articles sha...

Oct 12, 2020

Harry The Hummingbird

The STRIVE Method: Harry The Hummingbird Over the next few months, you will receive a series o...

Oct 06, 2020

Reality

I planned to spend time with my cousin on Friday night; then on Saturday, he would drive me into ...

Sep 24, 2020

Greyscale

Game of Thrones fans will remember Ser Jorah Mormont picking up a greyscale infection...

Sep 09, 2020

A Resistance Reversal

The universe is vast, and somewhere, deep inside, you’ll find a Dry Martini with a Tw...

Sep 03, 2020

Alcoholism is an Invisible, Violent and Dominant Belief System

In 1946, E. M. Jellinik, the man credited with naming Alcoholism as a disease, ...

Sep 02, 2020

The Suffering Choice

Two people, working for the same company, lose their job on the same day. It’s an u...

Aug 15, 2020

The Bell and the Blackbird

I’m on the phone to Jude telling him that my life is shifting in ways that I can’t ...

Aug 12, 2020

Finishing Things

Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass on creative writing is brilliant, and one of the thin...

Jul 27, 2020

Learn to Value Yourself

"Let alcohol in, and often, procrastination follows. If you want to shut the door, then l...

Jul 22, 2020

The Fire

I sit on the tube imagining a bomb exploding. Reaper-like flames claw at my Zia. A fingerna...

Jul 16, 2020

Sugar-Free Poison

I’m in the lift in the ARIA Resort in Las Vegas. Two guys join me, both dr...

Jul 13, 2020

Nickel The Pig

Nickel is a ceramic pig. Zia dropped him a few times (not the smartest gift for a 3-ye...

Jul 13, 2020

Expectations

I get it. Lowering your expectations is a cracking way to mitigate the failure fall.&n...

Jul 07, 2020

The Gods

I used to love visiting restaurants. Today, it's excruciating. I catch myself forcing my ...

Jul 06, 2020

Prosperity

Something has clicked. It's clicked before. It will click again. While it's ...

Jul 06, 2020

The Only Way Out is Through

After a bike ride that’s taken him less than four hours to travel 50-miles, Tony wonder...

Jul 18, 2019