Last week, I hit four years sober. And I want to share four deeper realisations that might completely change the way you think about your relationship with alcohol.
But first, here’s a bit of my story.
Giving up alcohol is, hands down, one of the most transformative decisions I’ve ever made.
Looking back, I had no idea how much it was holding me back — physically, mentally and emotionally.
I was never a heavy drinker. Maybe a few bottles of wine a week, mostly on weekends. A few more drinks when I was out with friends. Pretty standard.
But the day after drinking, sometimes for days after, I felt awful. The anxiety started to hang around longer. My mood was all over the place.
And I had a huge problem in my life at that time. I felt completely stuck with my health and fitness. I just couldn’t seem to get going, and I couldn’t string together more than a few good weeks.
This is painful to admit, but I really hated how I looked.
Hate’s a strong word, but it’s true. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I was extremely self-conscious, and I was just frustrated and disappointed in myself.
I tried setting rules to moderate my drinking, but they failed every time. Eventually, I realised I needed a clean break.
And here I am, four years later. No drinks. And no desire, even remotely, to ever go back.
The best way I can describe how it’s felt? It’s like taking the handbrake off life. I’ve unlocked a version of myself I didn’t even know was possible.
So here are the four biggest, less obvious realisations I’ve had since giving up alcohol.
Not just the surface-level stuff like better sleep or less anxiety, but the deeper shifts that explain why sobriety has changed everything for me.
- You Get Results You Can’t Predict
I thought giving up alcohol would mostly help with energy, mood, and maybe a bit of weight loss.
But the impact went way, way deeper. It took my life in a direction I couldn’t have imagined, in the best possible way.
A good example is my foundational health habits. Shortly after quitting alcohol, I started getting more serious about my lifestyle. That slowly evolved into a full-blown journey of discovering and tracking what are now my eight foundational health habits.
I have no doubt that if I hadn’t given up alcohol, I wouldn’t have gone on that journey. And I definitely wouldn’t be living the lifestyle I have now. That shift alone has been massive for me.
Over the last four years, I’ve developed a level of discipline and capability I didn’t even know I had. And it’s extended into every area of my life.
Yes, removing alcohol helped directly. But more than that, it triggered a chain reaction, a trickle-down effect that made me a more intentional, capable person overall.
One of my favourite quotes is from Steve Jobs:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
That’s exactly how this has felt. The big takeaway? You can’t predict where this kind of change will lead, but you can trust it’ll take you to a far better version of yourself.
You just have to make the decision, commit, and buckle up for the ride.
- It Unlocked a Whole New Level of Health and Fitness
I always knew sobriety would improve my health. But I didn’t expect just how significant the change would be.
As I mentioned earlier, my eight foundational health habits are now a big part of my life. They’ve become the backbone of how I train, eat, and feel day to day.
When it comes to training and nutrition, I’m operating at a level I couldn’t have fathomed before.
I’m training six times a week — strength, high-intensity, Zone 2 cardio, plus 10,000 steps a day — and that’s just normal for me now. It’s how I live. And it blows my mind that just four years ago, I couldn’t sustain even a quarter of that.
Same goes for nutrition. I’ve shifted to eating mostly whole foods, I’ve quadrupled my protein intake, and I track calories and macros consistently. It’s not quite as effortless as my training yet, but it’s on a completely different level to where I used to be.
These shifts in how I train and eat mean I’m now the healthiest and fittest I’ve ever been, by a long shot. But more importantly, I feel better in myself. I’m no longer ashamed of how I look. In fact, I’m starting to feel genuinely proud of my physique.
And here’s the real litmus test: I’m no longer embarrassed to take my top off. That might sound small — but for me, it’s massive. That hasn’t been true for most of my adult life, and even a fair bit of my younger years.
And I can say with total certainty — none of this would’ve been possible if alcohol was still in the picture.
- It Changed My Relationship with Sleep
I didn’t realise how important sleep was to me until I gave up alcohol.
Once alcohol was out of the picture, my sleep improved massively. And I was shocked by how much better I felt — clearer, more stable, and more capable. All, just from sleeping well.
Then something strange happened. On the rare nights I did sleep badly, I’d wake up feeling hungover. A few times, for a split second, I actually thought I’d had drinks the night before. That’s how rough I felt.
That’s when it really hit me: quality sleep is everything. And I don’t think I could’ve fully realised that without removing alcohol first.
Giving up drinking became the catalyst for a whole journey to improve my sleep — from a low-quality average of 6 hours to an average of 7.5 hours of high-quality sleep.
And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this improvement in sleep might’ve had an even bigger impact than sobriety itself.
- A Quieter Brain
This is a big one for me.
I had no idea how much mental space alcohol was taking up. The rules I kept setting. The negotiations and exceptions. The guilt when I broke those rules. And the constant low-level frustration.
Once alcohol was gone, all of that went with it. It felt like I’d let go of something that had a subtle but constant hold over me. And it made me realise I can’t afford to give that kind of control to anything.
Since then, I’ve become more aware of other areas in my life where that same pattern shows up.
Caffeine is the next one on my radar. I’ve noticed more internal chatter around my “rules,” and I’m more attached to those two morning coffees than I’d like to be.
It’s also one of the reasons I like intermittent fasting. It feels like my way of asserting control over food. A bit like, “I’ll eat on my terms, thank you very much.”
Giving up alcohol showed me that even things that don’t seem like a huge problem can still take up way too much space in your life. And that kind of invisible drain is super distracting and becomes a drag on your day-to-day life.
Now, I’m far more self-aware of anything that starts drifting into that type of territory — and I’m much quicker to take back control.
Final Thoughts
So yeah, four years sober.
It’s been one of the most important and transformative decisions I’ve ever made.
And like I said, not because I hit rock bottom, but because I realised something subtle was holding me back — and I had the courage to remove it.
That one decision unlocked a completely different version of me. Healthier. More capable. More disciplined. And far more in control.
The Call to Action
If alcohol is something you’re wrestling with, even just quietly, I’d encourage you to get curious. Ask yourself how much space it’s taking up. How much it might be holding you back.
And I’d challenge you to be really honest with yourself. Really examine the story you’re telling yourself about how much alcohol is playing a role in your life — and, importantly, how much it might be holding you back. There’s a decent chance you might be trying to bullshit yourself.
At least that was the case for me. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t a problem for a long time, before I had to admit it was. You might be doing the same.
You don’t have to hit rock bottom to make a change. And you don’t have to commit to quitting forever.
You just have to be open-minded to the fact that there could be a better version of you on the other side — and take the first step toward exploring it.
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