Sober Book Club

The Sober Book Club was really a desperate grab at remaining accountable to my sobriety. I got sober in lockdown and I was nearing my 6 month mark at the same time the pubs, bars and clubs were due to re-open after being forced shut the year prior. I hadn’t dealt with the triggers that late night drinking venues could cause, neither did I particularly want to think about what life would look like living on a busy nightlife street with the noise and chaos happening right outside my door. I needed something to ground me, a focus that would get me closer to my goal (my original plan was to do just one year of sobriety), something I would be proud of and take joy in away from the partying culture. The Sober Book Club was born and in just over 2 years I’ve been running it now, it has bought me everything I asked for; community, happiness, pride, a dearth of knowledge and one heck of a library. As something that begun quite selfishly. I have really learnt not to be so selfish. I felt so alone in my sobriety journey at the beginning, I remember being proud of myself that I was embarking on this huge self discovery journey and then crying because I had no one to share it with.

But through the Sober Book Club, my journey became so much more about me and my issues, my aloneness and my pride, it became about a whole group of different people with the same goal, brought together by their love of literature and hope for a better way of living. It wasn’t me creating a space for myself to share my story that aided my sobriety journey, it was the other people who joined me to share their stories that really cemented me in my belief that I was doing the right thing and on the right path. At the Sober Book Club we read a different sobriety themed book each month and meet on the last Sunday of the month at 5pm UK time via Zoom to catch up and discuss the book. We try to read as many different genres in the Quit Lit umbrella; memoirs, self-help, psychology, non-fiction/fact based books. Some of the books we have read so far include The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Grey, The Sober Diaries by Clare Pooley, Drink? By David Nutt and Freedom From Our Addictions by Russell Brand. All you have to do to join the book club is follow us on social media @sober.book.club and read along with us, although there’s no obligation to read the book if you want to join us at one of our meetings just to connect and be around fellow sober and sober-curious people, pop along and say hi!