So often, women confide in me that they found it easy to stay sober when they were pregnant because they did it for the love of their growing baby. But when they’re no longer pregnant, they struggle to muster that same love for themselves.

That’s deeply unsettling when we stop to think about it, huh?⁠
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Have you ever looked at a photo of yourself at age three or four? If it’s been a while, go take a peek. Pull out a photo and look deeply into the eyes of that young child. Think about the hopes and dreams that existed behind those tiny eyes. ⁠⁠
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How would you speak to that child every day? How would you protect, love and care for them? What kinds of hard decisions would you make on their behalf in order to ensure their long-term wellbeing? ⁠⁠
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What would you model for them about practicing self-kindness, and treating and speaking to themselves with love and compassion?

What advice would you give them about not abandoning or betraying themselves in a misguided attempt to please others?⁠⁠
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What kind of life and happiness would you ultimately want for them? ⁠⁠
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The truth is, that child still lives within you. That child still craves the same love, security, and safety. ⁠
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The best part is, now that you’re an adult, you have the complete power to give it to them. ❤️⁠⁠
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{P.S. We dive into this in deliciously more detail in Chapter 18 of Chameleon ????}⁠ ⁠

Book worm, like me?  Looking for new book recommendations?

It completely blows my mind that my first book, A Happier Hour, has reached the hearts and minds of more than 100,000 readers worldwide (!!). 

Ever since this bestselling memoir was published, I’ve received a ton of beautiful messages from readers, wanting to know my favourite books about sobriety and my suggestions for which ones they should read next.

The truth is, I became obsessed with reading books about sobriety from the very start of my journey, and they continue to fascinate me now. In reading stories about addiction and sobriety, we uncover stories about what it means to truly experience the depths and pinnacles of the human spirit. In reading other people’s stories, we recognise our own.

So I’m excited to share some of my favourites with you!  Here are a few I highly recommend…

My favourite books about sobriety, in narrative form (one long story, as in A Happier Hour):

Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
I love Augusten’s writing style full stop, and even more so that this book explores both addiction and sobriety and the myriad of human emotions and epiphanies that we experience as a result:
“You see, even though back when I was drinking I thought nothing bad ever happened to me, something did. Time passed. A lot of time passed. In bars, at parties with people I didn’t care for. It was always the drink. It wasn’t about love or reading the Sunday paper in bed. Or housebreaking a puppy. Or anything that people call ‘life.’ It was about drinking. So actually, something bad, very bad, did happen to me. I wasted my life. And now, what little I have left, I want.”

Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska
This author’s writing style is so unusual, I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, only to discover that it perfectly suited the genre. A fascinating and frightening tumble of fragments and memories that left me breathless and wanting so much more for her.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
This book is a novel and pure fiction, but was so spot on, it gave me chills. I couldn’t put it down and couldn’t say it any better than Stephen King’s tweet: “The alcoholic narrator is dead perfect.”

My favourite books about sobriety, written in traditional non-fiction form:

The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray
I love, love, LOVE the positivity, hope and optimism shared in this book, along with Catherine’s trademark sense of humour. I remember reading countless addiction memoirs in early sobriety, and was so disappointed when the vast majority of them ended abruptly just as the author stopped drinking. As though that was the end of the story of their lives. Which, of course, was exactly what I was afraid of.
This was precisely what inspired me to dedicate A Happier Hour to sharing the sobriety story, rather than the addiction part. Thankfully, Catherine’s book does the same. So many gems had me nodding in total agreement, and the ‘wearing a lot of white’ part had me laughing out loud in recognition.

Kick the Drink… Easily! by Jason Vale
By his own admission, Jason Vale is not a brilliant writer, nor is he particularly likeable in this book. But I do love his fresh perspective on the use of alcohol in modern society, and the excuses that keep us trapped. Unbrainwashing brilliance.

Blackout by Sarah Hepola
Haunting and harrowing. Home to such pearls as: “I left the clinic with the notion that alcohol was an escalating madness, and the blackout issue was the juncture separating two kinds of drinking. One kind was a comet in your veins. The other kind left you sunken and cratered, drained of all light.” and “The nights I can’t remember are the nights I can never forget.”

Recovery 2.0 by Tommy Rosen
I first came across Tommy Rosen through his annual ‘Recovery 2.0’ summit and loved his holistic approach to healing from and overcoming all addictions. Sober for more than 20 years, I love Tommy’s positive and practical approach to creating a life we don’t need to escape from. This book builds upon the AA 12 step program, but has a ton of helpful info to offer for everyone, including those who don’t necessarily resonate with the AA mindset or approach.

Why You Drink and How to Stop: A Journey to Freedom by Veronica Valli
Written by Addictions Therapist, Veronica Valli, this book peers into the reasons that some people drink the way they do. It explores how alcoholism is the symptom of a spiritual illness. Beautifully written, you’ll read with a growing clarity that leads to hope, and put it down knowing there is a solution.

Spirit Junkie by Gabrielle Bernstein
I’ve been a fan of Gabby’s videos blogs and books for years, and loved reading a little more about her own personal journey into addiction, recovery, and what it took to completely rebrand herself and her life.

High Sobriety by Jill Stark
Written by a binge-drinking, Scottish-Australian Journalist, I love that this book is written like a long magazine article. A fascinating look into the history and politics surrounding Australia’s big-drinking culture.

Drinking – A Love Story by Caroline Knapp
A brave memoir, this book delves deep into Caroline Knapp’s destructive relationship with alcohol. An intense account of another woman’s battle with the bottle. I found myself reading several pages over and over as the true depth of their meaning sank in.

There’s another addiction I see coming up time and again in our gorgeous Sexy Sobriety Members, and that’s the addiction to perfectionism.

I see it in myself too, when I stress over minor details, triple check every email before hitting ‘send’, or feel intense butterflies before speaking to a roomful of people.

Whereas children are happy to playfully barrel into new adventures, as adults, we tend to want to make sure we’re doing something ‘right’. We fear embarrassing ourselves or looking silly. It’s completely normal and understandable, of course, but this fear can hold us back from really putting ourselves out there and trying a ton of new things.

I was so excited to fly to Melbourne to talk to Jennifer Berlingieri, who is a Creative Arts Therapist and Artist. Jennifer facilitates workshops, groups, and private sessions designed to inspire personal growth and change, and has used the arts in therapy for over 14 years in diverse client settings, including mental health, trauma, drug & alcohol, eating disorders and aged care/dementia.

Jennifer is also a supervisor and sessional teacher at MIECAT for students pursuing the Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice, which is how I stumbled across her workshop (see Episode 4!).

I couldn’t wait to ask Jennifer all the questions I had before I went to her workshop, like how we train ourselves to accept that art therapy is about the PROCESS, not the final end result, allowing us more freedom and confidence within our experience.

As Jennifer shared, art therapy is not about improving our art work, it’s about exploring our emotions…

“Art therapy accesses the limbic parts of our brains, which is all about memory, intuition, emotions, and creativity. So, rather than talking ABOUT our lives, we are EXPRESSING our lives.”

Indeed, while immersed in the workshop, I found it a highly effective way of getting into my body. All the anxiety, perfectionism, people pleasing, and wanting to do things ‘right’ – it all lives in our heads, and can hold us back from really exploring any pent-up emotions we have stored in our bodies.

Join us as we delve deep into the beauty of utilising art therapy to further develop our emotional maturity and accelerate our growth…

“The more that we as adults can practice coming down from our expectations and getting ‘in the zone’, however we do that – it might be taking a walk or it might be dancing or scribbling – then our brain gets more used to that. So, neuroplasticity. If we can start bringing our brains away from the stress and the anxiety, then slowly, slowly, our brains will actually grow in that direction.”

My beautiful great-grandmother, for as long as I can remember and right up until she passed away about 15 years ago, sang in a choir every single week. She loved it, and would always tell us all about the friends she sang with, and what they were all up to. I thought it was adorable, but something that only elders did for fun.

Lo and behold, one fine day I was chatting with a group of friends when one of them mentioned that she was heading to choir practice later that day.

“Oh, which choir do you sing with?”, another friend asked. When she replied, he told us that he was in a different choir group, and they got to chatting about how much they both loved it.

Since these two friends are quite possibly the happiest people I know, it got me thinking about the sense of community that singing in a choir can bring, and the impact that can have on our mental health.

When we embrace sobriety, we also tend to change identity and lifestyle, which inevitably is a great thing. But during the bumpy transition phase, many of us can struggle with feelings of isolation, low self esteem, and difficulty processing complicated emotions.

Keen to understand how singing in a choir might be able to help, I came across Tania de Jong’s TEDx talk, ‘How Singing Together Changes the Brain‘. I was blown away and utterly inspired by Tania’s varied and fascinating career and the passion and love with which she talked about this topic.
 

“ So many of us have been told we can’t sing or we’re not creative, and these sorts of messages permeate our belief system, and we have these self-limiting beliefs that mean that we really disqualify ourselves from doing some of the things that would really help us to unlock our full potential. ”

 
Tania’s work focuses on building and unleashing creative potential that transforms lives. She’s not only an acclaimed Australian soprano, but also the founder of Creativity Australia, running With One Voice choir social inclusion programs, and the global community wellbeing video challenge, Sing for Good. So I was thrilled to fly to Melbourne to interview her.

I started to think joining a choir group might be fun, but felt a little apprehensive, because I don’t see myself as the ‘musical’ type, or believe I have a natural talent when it comes to singing.  I was keen to ask her if anyone could join (lacking talent or otherwise), as well as explore the physical, mental and emotional benefits.

Let’s just say, our chat did not disappoint. Join us as we dive into the magic of self-belief, unlocking our own individual voice and the voices of those around us, and exactly what it is about singing in a group that is so powerful for us as human beings…

“ Singing is like a super wonder drug because the neuroscientific benefits are so profound for people.
 
When you sing, and particularly when you sing with other people, your right temporal lobe fires up, making you smarter, happier, healthier, more creative. And so you release all these endorphins, and they are what make you feel smarter, happier, healthier, more creative. But instead of it being a temporary thing, like with alcohol, this is a permanent change to your brain…
 
Not only that, but your memory, language, concentration improves. Singing with others has even been shown to heal people from strokes and brain injuries, and improve people with alzheimers.
 
So it really is the most incredible drug for your brain… And the thing about it is, when you sing with other people, you breathe with them, because you’re breathing the same phrases together in a choir. And there’s also some research, which is quite beautiful, that shows that your hearts start to beat together. ”

Welcome to Episode 1 of our all-new Sexy Sobriety adventure series!
This series was inspired by the question, what next? What happens when we’ve been sober for a while? How do we really take our wellness and growth to the next level, and create a life that truly lights us up?

Today’s interview felt like the perfect segue from our traditional interview series into this exciting new realm…

 
Back in my teens and 20s, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what self-awareness even was, let alone have a strong enough sense of self to know what my values were.

I remember going for a job interview at a marketing company when I was about 19. The manager was a confident, charismatic man who smiled as I sat down and boomed, “So, Rebecca, tell me – what are you passionate about?”

I was completely baffled, and thought this must be some strange ‘marketing speak’ I wasn’t privy to. I mumbled something about being passionate about “my life”, but honestly, I didn’t have a clue. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

This was also around the same time that I developed the underlying belief that if I was thinner, people would love me more. I became obsessed, keeping a food diary and challenging myself to reduce the number of entries each day. Dizzy spells and almost fainting became as normal to me as breathing.  This false belief was a nightmare that haunted me for years.

Add to this, a propensity to drink myself silly, and you had one very lost, anxiety-ridden, ashamed, young woman.

It feels a world away from where I am now – alcohol-free, and finally at peace with wholesome food, my body, and my life.

I was so excited to fly to Singapore to talk to Aimee Barnes Pestano, not just because of her amazing work helping women to overcome alcohol misuse, but also the interesting crossover into eating disorders (and why it is that so many of us have experienced both).

Following her own transformational journey out of clinical depression and an alcohol use disorder in 2009, Aimee fell in love with running, and felt compelled to make a career shift, combining the fields of coaching, counselling, fitness and wellness.

When Aimee and her husband relocated from New York to Singapore, Aimee continued running, and then entered a national bodybuilding championship (and won!), propelling her onto the speaking circuit.

Join us as we dive into the correlation between eating and alcohol use disorders, the unique pressures and cultures of expat communities, and the beauty and liberation of self-discovery…

“ The disordered eating starts usually quite early, right? As a coping mechanism, or as a mechanism to push away that discomfort with oneself. And so, a lot of the women I work with, as a coach, I’m not just trying to get them to stop doing a certain behaviour, or stop using a substance. That’s actually a very small part of my job.

 

It’s: ‘Who are you? What do you want in life? What do you want to ask for? What’s your purpose? What are your values?’

 

THAT’S the work that I do and I love doing. And most often, they’ll say: “I don’t know. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know who I am; I don’t know what my values are.”
And that takes a long time to build and discover. Not running away from the self. “