15 Years of Trying to Moderate, Three Years Sober: Alison Calder's Recovery Story

Alison Calder is three years sober after a 15 year back and forth trying to moderate drinking that no other career made harder — she was a trained sommelier who went on to run her own wine company. In this recovery story, she walks through how she finally quit drinking after years of stopping and starting, champagne at breakfast for work, and daily wine drinking at home with two young children upstairs.

Alison's childhood was happy and nothing in it explained what happened when she picked up her first drink at 14. There was no off switch. By 24 she'd already been to an AA meeting and known something was wrong. By her late twenties she was working in a wine company where drinking through the day was the job — vineyard trips, breakfast champagne, tastings, events — and she was always the one who took it too far. She reached for help, she tried online groups with a fake Facebook profile so her clients wouldn't recognise her, she did dry months, she did everything except accept that moderation was never going to work for her.

www.instagram.com/alisoncalderalcoholcoach

www.facebook.com/alisoncaldercoaching

www.alisoncalder.com

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice.

www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellamartinez/

www.instagram.com/grownuphustle