3 Tips For Young Alcoholics
Advice from someone who quit drinking at 29.
I quit drinking when I was 29, which undeniably puts me on the younger side of most recovery communities. When I first quit, I even worried that I might be too young for sobriety. I thought that by getting sober at such a young age, I might just be setting myself up for failure.
I’m thankful to say these fears were misplaced. I’ve now been sober for five-and-a-half years, and I’m relieved that I didn’t wait to quit until I was older. If anything, I wish I had stopped drinking even sooner.
I think that quitting at a young age creates a few unique challenges, so I’d like to share a few tips that helped me:
Reframe Your Thinking
I used to think of getting sober as “giving up” alcohol. I thought that if I quit drinking at a young age, I’d end up missing out on all the fun that drinking would provide. Did I really want to go through my twenties and thirties without ever going out and partying?
The trouble with this line of thinking is that it didn’t reflect my reality at all. I wasn’t having fun with my drinking habit. Instead, I found myself in front of the television night after night, drunk and lonely.
