Six Steps To Quitting Drink

The important stuff that helped me get sober and stay sober

Someone asked me the other day if I could be truly sober if I wasn’t a fully signed up member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don’t know.

I do know that I haven’t had a drink in almost eight years. But some people will say that doesn’t necessarily make me sober. I’m just an addict who manages not to pour booze down his throat.

I’ve tried AA. I’ve been to numerous meetings, read the books, learned about the twelve steps. I always recommend it to people who are struggling and want advice. It’s free, there’s one in every town - and it works.

But it’s not for everyone. I have never committed to it fully. I never got a sponsor or did the twelve steps in a formal way. So people in AA might well call me a ‘dry drunk.’

I have learned all sorts of wisdom from AA. But I have combined that with tons of other helpful stuff I picked up from a wide range of sources: everything from regular therapy to exercise to ancient philosophy to celebrity memoirs (thank you Elton John, Tony Adams and Francis Rossi of Status Quo, your stories of addiction and recovery have been easily as helpful to me as the works of Seneca).

I have used all of this to build my own programme that works for me. At least I think it does. Certainly it has made my life a million times easier, happier and more optimistic than it was eight years ago

Everyone has to find the right path for themselves. But there are some principles that I think are fundamental to any successful attempt to get sober and stay sober. Here are my Big Six…