My Sobriety Story with Paul
“The noise of moderation is no longer there—I’m just someone who doesn’t drink.”
This series showcases personal stories of addiction recovery and sobriety. Today’s edition features
, a distinguished clinical psychologist with over three decades of experience in behavior change and public health. He has dedicated his career to developing effective interventions for a range of health and social issues. His extensive work in clinical settings, combined with his research and leadership in public health, provides him with a unique understanding of the complexities of alcohol dependence and its impact on individuals and communities. Paul is now leveraging his expertise to address the need for evidence-based, compassionate, and stigma-reducing approaches to problematic drinking through writing and public advocacy. His work can be found on his Substack publication and at drpaulchadwick.org.When and how did you get sober?
The when is simple—the tracker on my phone says my last drink was over three and a half years ago. This does not feel like a long time. But then I remember the decades of not being able to go longer than a few days without having a drink. Every morning, millions of people wake up believing that getting to the end of the day without alcohol is impossible. I used to be one of them. I am incredibly grateful that is no longer me.
The how is more difficult to explain. I originally intended to quit for a couple of months, reset my brain, and go back to drinking with a lower level of tolerance. But the longer I progressed, the more I realized how deeply alcohol had seeped into and taken over my life. I saw the benefits in those who had gone years without drinking and finally accepted that I wanted the same for myself. Being part of an alcohol-free community was an essential part of this transformation. Giving up drinking to achieve a better life is an act of faith. You need guidance from people who have traveled the path before you to keep you on track.
As a psychologist, I needed to understand what was happening to me. I didn’t just want to not drink; I wanted something more fundamental—to be free of the desire to drink. So, I worked hard at understanding the science behind my drinking, the science of desire. I made it an intellectual project. If I could really understand the source of my desire to drink, then perhaps I could achieve that which had eluded me for so long.
I tried to dig into what was happening when that urge for a drink arose; what was happening inside my brain and my body, and how that was manifesting in my experience. I made each craving an experiment. What was I experiencing? What were the triggers for this specific craving? What was happening in my brain at each moment? I wrote it all down and read widely to learn about what was going on. I used the data I was collecting to deepen my understanding of what was driving my behavior at the neuronal, anatomical, psychological, social, and cultural level.
I wrote about what I was learning so I could make sense of it for myself. I also shared what I was learning with the alcohol-free communities I belonged to. Eventually, this manifested in a desire to pull this together in a way that it would make sense to others who were struggling with their drinking. This became my book: Do I Drink Too Much? Stop Drinking from Becoming a Life-Limiting Addiction.
What was the turning point in your decision to get sober?
Like many people, I made the decision to give up drinking completely in the white heat of a terrible hangover. It was a decision I had made many, many times before. I totally and irrevocably believed in that decision for the rest of that week. Then the ambivalence crept in. I revised my goal from total abstinence to staying off booze for a month, and when I reached a month, revised it again to 100 days.
At 100 days, I had a crisis. I told myself that if I could get to 100 days, then I couldn’t possibly have a problem, that life was not that bad when drinking. I began to reflect that my non-drinking life was so much harder than I remembered my drinking life to be, and started to ask why I was doing this to myself. Over the next few days, I withdrew from the alcohol-free community I belonged to and entertained thoughts of what my next drink would be.
But there was ambivalence here too, another voice telling me that I owed it to myself to go further. The phrase “you haven’t come this far only to come this far” kept running through my mind. A friend from my alcohol-free community reached out to see if I was okay. This was a critical moment and helped me reconnect with the desire to not drink. Over the next few days, I dug deep into my reasons for wanting to change and revised my goal to get to a year without drinking.
It’s tempting to reduce the decision to give up drinking to a single event or a turning point. However, psychological science tells us that the picture is more complex. The decision I made three and a half years ago, and every decision since, was built on a gradual realization over many years that my drinking was (a) ramping up, (b) stopping me from achieving things I wanted to achieve, (c) taking up more and more of my life, and (d) escaping my ability to control it. There was no rock-bottom moment, just a gradual, insidious creep towards a life that was not fulfilling, leading eventually to a realization that something needed to change. And that something was no more alcohol.
What surprised you about getting sober?
Two things. First, how goddamn hard it was. It was much harder than I expected it to be. That it was so hard became the reason to give up drinking completely. Nothing that is that hard to give up can be good for one’s soul!
The second thing relates to social anxiety. I had long believed I was a social liability who needed a drink to exist socially. This turned out not to be true. The longer I went without a drink, the more I realized that I’m not at all socially anxious. I like people, and I love hanging out with them. However, many of the ways we are socialized to socialize with others are not that enjoyable without a drink in your hand. Once I realized it was the situation and not the socializing that was the problem, I simply found new ways of being with people that worked for me. It’s been incredibly liberating to change that thirty-five-year-old narrative about myself.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered on your recovery journey?
In the early days, it was negotiating the alcohol-saturated culture I had created for myself—every aspect of my life was geared towards drinking. It felt very lonely to be the only one not drinking. Being in the presence of drunk people for a long time can be very boring. But I have found other ways to spend time with people, and those ways are more satisfying than slurred, drunken conversations that no one ever remembers. Nevertheless, the way some friendships have changed has been difficult and has felt like a loss.
When the tide of alcohol retreated, it revealed the wreck of some longstanding issues. Choosing not to avoid problems by escaping into chemically induced oblivion was initially very hard. However, there are always other ways of dealing with life’s difficulties, and using methods such as yoga, mindfulness, and breathwork brings relief, but more importantly, great joy.
As a mental health coping strategy, alcohol depletes you whilst also making future mental health problems more likely. The net effect of using alcohol to cope with psychological challenges is always negative in the long term, even if it is positive in the short term. Yoga, exercise, meditation, and breathwork do the opposite—not only are they very effective at alleviating stress and distress, but they also enhance life in many other ways.
What are the biggest benefits or gifts of sobriety?
Four words: Peace, Joy, Kindness, Confidence, and Friendship.
Peace comes from no longer having the constant noise of moderation in my head. Haggling with myself about whether to drink, how much to drink, and how to manage the aftereffects—it was all too much mental effort. The noise of moderation is no longer there—I’m just someone who doesn’t drink.
Joy is now a constant companion. It’s an undercurrent of good feeling that is bubbling under the surface, just waiting to be noticed and liberated, even in the darkest of times. Neurologically, a brain dependent on alcohol is a brain that has its capacity for joy chemically ablated.
Kindness. Alcohol makes the best of us casually cruel and cynical. It’s hard to be kind when your brain is constantly waiting for its next fix. Now that my brain has healed, there is more room for being kinder and more compassionate to others. And slowly, I am learning to be kinder to myself!
Confidence. Knowing that you can remove alcohol from your life gives you confidence that almost anything else is achievable. This is an amazing gift!
Friendship. The friends who hold your hand whilst you are walking through the fire of addiction are very special. Old friendships have deepened, and I’ve found new friends from supporting others, but also by allowing myself to be supported.
What words of advice would you give someone who’s considering sobriety or newly sober?
Two truths exist simultaneously for those who are thinking about giving up drinking or are in the early stages of sobriety. These are: (a) there is never a good time to give up drinking, and (b) the best time to give up drinking is always right now!
We spend so many years waiting for the right time, and often the narrative of “rock bottom” informs our views about what that right time looks like. From a neurological and behavior-change perspective, waiting for a rock bottom is at best ineffective and at worst incredibly dangerous. It makes me sad and angry that this is the dominant cultural narrative about when to act on problematic drinking.
Neurologically, the time to act is the moment you first wake up to the possibility that your drinking might be out of control. The moment you ask yourself, “Do I drink too much?” should be the trigger point for taking a meaningful break. The longer you wait to act after you first ask yourself this question, the harder it will be to liberate yourself.
Less than 15 percent of people who want to give up drinking achieve it—one reason for this is that most people wait too long before acting. This is the premise of my book: Do I Drink Too Much? Stop Drinking from Becoming a Life-Limiting Addiction. It highlights the subtle ways that a drinking problem manifests long before one approaches rock bottom.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but for many people, a year without alcohol will deliver more for their mental and physical health than any therapist, coaching, or transformation program. And it will be way cheaper! The longer you go without a drink, the deeper and more impactful the benefits will be. It really is a gift that keeps on giving. I think everyone owes it to themselves to find out what might be possible. Start with a year and see how you go from there.
In practical terms, do this: make a commitment, find a community, connect with them every day, and make the project of getting to the end of the day without a drink your number one priority. Do this for long enough, and you will be amazed at how much of the rest of your life will end up taking care of itself.
Want to share your sobriety story?
Thank you for sharing, Paul! We look forward to connecting with you in the comments.
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Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and story, Paul. I found myself nodding along, thinking: yes! exactly!
Great to hear more of your story Paul (and see a picture of your face, after all these years 😀) I resonate so much with what you say, especially about the qualities that are so much more accessible when alcohol is not clouding our system. Alcohol slowly phased out of my life about 10 years ago, as I was recovering from health issues, and I love the clarity my mind has without its presence.