Find a group or community. Knowing that you’re not alone and hearing other people’s stories and struggles with alcohol has been one of the most important discoveries for us on our road to living alcohol free. Explore the Groups and Meetings section on our website to see which one could be a good fit for you. Some are free and others have a small annual fee. For groups like Reframe, which is one of our favourites because of all the resources it provides, you can try it out for a week before committing. The key is that you are not alone and you don’t have to do this alone. “Connection is the opposite of addiction.”

Get an app to track your drinking habits and costs. The Try Dry app is one that we really like because it’s a free option for visualizing how much alcohol is costing you and how much you can save by being alcohol-free for a day or two or…100. The bonus of these savings is that they’re not just financial – imagine a new beginning, clarity and clearer skin, to name just a few of the many other benefits.

Read about alcohol’s effects on the brain and body. Alcohol Explained by William Porter is brilliant. This isn’t just a “drinking is bad” book, this is an “alcohol is a highly addictive, toxic poison against which we don’t stand a chance” book. Yep, turns out the alcohol producers know what they’re doing. Think tobacco industry only present day.

Experiment with Sobriety. Under Challenges on our website, Annie Grace has a program called the 30-day Alcohol Free Experiment with videos that are sent to your email every day for 30 days. We had the videos arrive at 6:30pm daily, at about the time we would typically have our first drink of the day. The timing and messaging of the videos got us through the “witching hour” when our cravings were the most intense. Another resource under books is the 30-Day Sobriety Solution with Jack Canfield – awesome book for self discovery and creating new habits one day at a time.

Listen to podcasts. See our Podcasts page for a selection – from the hilarious to the deep and enlightening and everything in between…there’s something for everyone.

Change things up! Instead of doing the things you regularly associate with drinking and at the time when you might normally have your first drink. Get out of the house, go for a walk, take a drive or if it’s social occasions when you drink, order or bring along alcohol-free drinks to help you along. The alcohol-free beers are excellent (Athletic, Sober Carpenter, Corona), and there’s the odd decent wine but they’re hard to find and expensive. Stay tuned to our Instagram account where we’ll be posting suggestions and reviews.