How I Quit Drinking After a Decade of Addiction: Olivia Taylor's Sobriety Story

Olivia Taylor is two years sober after a decade of alcohol addiction that started with morning drinking at 18 and ended with a litre of vodka a day, crack cocaine binges, and six months lying in the bed she's now recording this sobriety story from. In this recovery story, she walks through how she got sober, how many times rehab didn't work, and the phone call that finally did.

Olivia's earliest memories are of paranoia and OCD so severe she paced her bedroom at six years old. Her first drink at 12 silenced all of it. By 18 she was drinking from 8am. By 19 she'd woken up in her boss's hotel room — a man 30 years older who would become her daughter's dad, isolate her from her family, and make her pregnant at 20 against her will. She left that coercive relationship, got free, and her drinking got worse, not better.

In this conversation, Olivia opens up about being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at 17 and having it used against her by every controlling man who followed, walking out of her first rehab at 23 and spending four nights on the street smoking crack with strangers, a partner who drove her off the road at 90mph trying to kill them both, writing suicide notes from this same bedroom, and the unknown phone call she felt compelled to answer that turned out to be her mum behind the scenes arranging a rehab bed that actually worked. Six months of intense therapy and dialectical behavioural therapy later, she came out a different person.

Two years alcohol free, raising her daughter Leila in the same house she nearly died in, and now helping other women in recovery through @sobercoastalife on Instagram. Olivia is living proof that however many times you've tried to quit drinking and failed, the next attempt can be the one.

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sobercoasterlife

Tiktok @sobercoasterlife

Co-host of @thesisterspat podcast alongside my sister, where we dive into the raw and unfiltered realities of addiction sharing both the addict’s and the family’s perspective with honesty, compassion, and a touch of humour.

https://www.instagram.com/thesisterspatpodcast?igsh=cnoyNjhybmEzbHB4

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6ak1FH2D72miiw7t8eRt8X?si=JcVt6C4WSrC5oK7N193p2g

Website: https://www.sobercoasterlife.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