30 days of sobriety

Quitting drinking was the beginning.

Written by: Thomas Burgess Co-founder of SAWUK

For me, this is where it all began. I stopped drinking.

I had known for a long time that I had a problem with alcohol. I enjoyed getting drunk, and I enjoyed watching other people have a good time and get drunk because, in some way, that gave me permission to do the same. There was always a reason, an occasion or somebody else joining in, and for a long time that made it easier not to look too closely at my own relationship with alcohol.

It took the love of a woman to change that. My wife didn't accuse me of being an alcoholic. She didn't make me wrong or give me a label. She simply asked me a very obvious yet subtle question: “Do you think you have a problem with alcohol?”

And I had the courage to say, “Yes, I think I do.”

That was August 2022. At the time of writing this, I have now been sober for just over four years.

Looking back, stopping drinking was one of the most important decisions I have ever made, but sobriety itself wasn't the end of the story. In many ways, sobriety was only the beginning.

Once the alcohol was gone, I had the ability to start looking at why I had needed it in the first place.

Remove the numbing, reveal the work

Alcohol had become a strategy in my life. It changed how I felt. It allowed me to switch off, join in, escape, celebrate, avoid and ultimately numb. I wasn't consciously analysing any of that while I was drinking. I simply knew that alcohol did something for me, and over time I had come to rely upon that relationship more than I was prepared to admit.

There is something strange about drinking in this way because it can look incredibly social from the outside while your world becomes progressively smaller on the inside. I could be surrounded by people and still be disconnected from myself.

When I stopped drinking, the strategy disappeared, but I was still there.

Without getting sober and removing that chemical dependency from my life, I don't believe I would have had the ability to look honestly at what sat underneath it. Sobriety gave me enough clarity to begin asking different questions about myself, my experiences, my behaviours and the things I had carried with me through life.

There is no coincidence for me that Save A Warrior came along when it did.

I had stopped drinking first. That mattered.

Why We Require 30 Days of Sobriety Before SAWUK

My own experience has helped shape how I understand an important requirement of Save A Warrior UK today: participants must have achieved a minimum of 30 days of sobriety before attending a SAWUK cohort.

This isn't a judgement about alcohol, addiction or the person asking us for help. It is about being ready to participate in the work.

Save A Warrior UK is not a detoxification service, addiction treatment provider or sobriety programme. We provide a peer-led, non-clinical suicide prevention programme, and the 72-hour residential cohort requires participants to be present and capable of engaging fully with what is being asked of them.

For some people who contact us, that means SAWUK may not be the next step.

Sobriety may need to come first.

Thirty days should not be seen as a barrier keeping somebody out. It is preparation for coming in. It provides some distance between the person and the substance and creates an opportunity for greater clarity before undertaking the SAWUK programme.

It is also important to say that 30 days sober does not mean somebody has resolved everything that led them to drink. I certainly hadn't. For me, sobriety simply created the conditions in which I could finally begin looking at those things.

If Sobriety Needs to Come First

If somebody contacts us and tells us honestly that alcohol or another substance currently has a hold over their life, we would much rather hear the truth than have them tell us what they think they need to say to secure a place on a cohort.

The door isn't closed. There is simply another door that may need opening first.

Where appropriate, we can help introduce someone to a recognised 12-step programme or fellowship that can support them in establishing sobriety. If somebody requires medical detoxification, addiction treatment or other specialist support, we will encourage them towards the appropriate professional services.

Once somebody has achieved the required period of sobriety, and they meet the other requirements for attending SAWUK, we can continue the conversation about joining a future cohort.

That is an important part of our approach. We do not need to pretend that SAWUK is the answer to everything in order to help somebody find their next right step.

What Happened After I Got Sober

Getting sober did not magically fix my life. What it did was give me the opportunity to participate in my life differently.

For me, Save A Warrior came next.

The timing mattered because I was finally in a position to look beyond the alcohol and begin examining some of the things that sat underneath my behaviour. Save A Warrior provided the possibility of going further, but I had to arrive ready to do that work.

My sobriety and my experience of Save A Warrior therefore belong to the same story, but they perform very different jobs.

One helped remove the thing I had been using to cope.

The other gave me an opportunity to look at why I had needed to cope that way in the first place.

Sometimes It Starts With a Question

More than four years later, I remain incredibly grateful for the question my wife asked me.

She didn't diagnose me. She didn't shame me. She didn't tell me what my answer had to be. She created enough room for me to tell the truth.

“Do you think you have a problem with alcohol?”

That question helped me address considerably more than alcohol in my life.

If you are reading this and recognise something of yourself here, perhaps there is a similar question worth asking yourself. Maybe you already know the answer. Maybe somebody who loves you has been trying to have the conversation. Maybe you're reading this because you're worried about your husband, partner, son, brother, dad, colleague or friend.

You do not need to understand the whole journey before taking the first step.

If you are a serving or veteran member of the Military or Emergency Services community and think Save A Warrior UK could be part of what comes next, get in touch with us and have an honest conversation. If sobriety needs to happen first, we can help you understand that next step and, where appropriate, introduce you to a recognised 12-step programme or fellowship.

For me, the journey started in August 2022 with a question and an honest answer.

Sobriety didn't finish the work. It made the work possible.