LAYLA, 26, ONE YEAR SOBER, STARTED DRINKING AGAIN THREE YEARS AGO

“I had been thinking about stopping drinking for about six months before I actually decided to stop. I had drunk heavily since I was a teenager, always blacking out, always feeling full of regret and shame the morning after. In the final six months before I stopped drinking, I was constantly making promises to myself that I couldn’t keep, and trying to cure the anxiety I felt by drinking more, which was a vicious cycle. At that point, I was definitely drinking every day in varying amounts; bottles of wine alone, always having ‘just one more glass’.

"I was 21 when I made the decision to stop so I definitely felt an impact on my social life. Drinking is so ingrained in our culture that not drinking, I felt I was met with certain levels of suspicion. Some friends distanced themselves – because when the person who is always the most drunk stops drinking, you are forced to take a look at yourself. Others were supportive, but I found I was often pushing myself to stay out until 6am even if I wasn’t enjoying myself, chugging Diet Cokes and trying to hold conversation with coked up or drunk people. But after a while you start being more OK with being sober, or going home.

"There are so many benefits to not drinking. The obvious ones are that you never get hangovers, you don’t have to worry about what you did in a blackout, you didn’t spend all your money on booze and taxis. You turn up to work on time, you know you haven’t pissed anyone off. After a while, I also learnt to be confident without alcohol – which didn’t come easily. I had to really scrutinise my personality because when you are consistently just yourself, without adding anything to ‘you’, you start noticing the way you behave more. I grew up a lot.

"I decided to drink again just before my two-year-sober birthday. The initial joy had worn off and I got it into my head that I needed to be young and reckless again, and that with the sobriety under my belt, I'd be able to drink normally. The first few weeks were great – the way I wanted it to be: a cocktail in a bar and then home. But within a few weeks I was straight back to my old tricks: putting myself in dangerous situations, waking up with no memory of what had happened, getting covered in bruises.

"With time, my drinking has evened out and those kind of nights are rare, but not completely gone. I would say that today I am warier of drinking on feelings as, inevitably, you feel so much worse the next day. I also never drink alone, which I did heavily and frequently before. My advice to anyone thinking about quitting would be: if you want to stop, stop – only you know your relationship with alcohol, but you don’t have to wait until something awful happens to you to make that decision.”

*Some names have been changed.