365 Days Dry

The Craic, the Culture and the Clarity

Author’s Note

Happy Sunday Chain-breakers! And Happy Mother’s Day to the countries and the mothers celebrating it today!

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This week, I’m sharing something close to my heart. A different kind of milestone. One that… I am truly proud of.

Alcohol was part of some of the best nights of my life… and some of the darkest times. I’ve done things I still regret. But I’ve also worked to make peace with them and to keep moving forward.

Hitting 365 days dry gave me the clarity and the courage to write this.

I hope you enjoy it. And if you’re in a similar boat, I hope it helps.

Thanks for reading,
Stephen

365 Days Dry: The Craic, the Culture, and the Clarity

After a full year without alcohol, I’ve been thinking a lot about addiction, alcoholism, and the strange idea that not drinking is somehow uncool.

I’ve definitely struggled with Alcohol Use Disorder. I spent most of my adult life chasing the title of “last man standing”… the life and soul of every party, the lad who never said no to one more. So I reckon I’ve earned a decent vantage point to explore this fascinating, often misunderstood topic.

In Ireland, where I grew up, drinking isn’t just accepted… it’s expected. Pints are practically a currency. You celebrate with pints. You grieve with them. Bond over them. Break up with them. Make up over them. Not drinking raises more eyebrows than being absolutely hammered on a Tuesday night.

Say you're off it, and it’s like announcing you’ve joined a cult or started talking to trees.

It wasn’t just peer pressure. It was cultural pressure.

Then I moved to England when I was 19. The accents changed, but the pub culture didn’t. After-work pints turned into all-night sessions. Saying “no thanks” to a drink was met with “Go on, just the one,” or “You boring or something?” There’s this odd moral hierarchy that treats drinking as a badge of honour and sobriety as suspicious.

Australia was no different. If anything, the sun just made the beer colder and the drinking start earlier. Barbecues. Birthdays. Beach days… every occasion was a reason to get stuck in. Turn up with a bottle of water or refuse a shot of tequila at a party, and you stood out. Not just as different… but as someone ruining the vibe. Or worse, silently judging.

But when I chose not to drink, it wasn’t a judgement on anyone else. I just wanted out. I couldn’t face another disaster. I’ve had a few… more than a few.

The truth is, the consequences of drinking can go far beyond the hangover. I’m still angry I got behind the wheel after drinking. I have good friends I met in prison who have had dire consequences (to themselves and others) from driving under the influence. I should know better. Thankfully, nobody was hurt when I drove but I still regret doing that to this day. I made my apologies to myself and loved ones, who I let down and got counselling to address it.

People remember your worst nights and your worst actions long after you’ve started turning your life around. The judgement lingers. The whispers continue. I’ve seen this as recent as last week. I’m a year sober and trying, yet people would prefer to try pour salt onto the wounds… and I guess that’s their prerogative to do so.

All it takes is one more half-remembered mess. One more morning-after apology tour, trying to piece together what I said, who I offended, and how much more of myself I lost.

When it comes to encouraging others to drink, I’m not throwing stones. I was a relentless ringleader of that carry-on for years.

You’re talking to a fella who used to fine people with a shot for every fifteen minutes they were late to a pub gathering. And not for a stag or a birthday bash… this was your average Saturday afternoon!

When my best mate visited Australia from Ireland with his then-girlfriend, he left his hotel key with me by mistake. Silly… silly mistake.

The next morning, when he didn’t answer his phone, I decided to show him there was no escape from my Demon Drink Wrath. I bought two Scream masks from a novelty shop, handed them to two of my staff, and sent them straight to his hotel room.

They burst in shouting, “Steo sent us!”... dragged him out of bed, into a waiting cab with the engine running, and straight to the pub. I’ll always remember the confused smile on his face being carried into the pub to raucous applause.

I should probably take this opportunity to apologise to the wives and girlfriends of my friends who endured years of this lunacy. I was… wild.

So when I say I get the pressure, the rituals, the mad rules we used to live by… I’m certainly not above it. I immersed myself in it.

I saw a psychologist recently on Instagram who said, “If you walk into an Irish bar and order a juice, you’ll get three questions: Are you on antibiotics? Are you sick? Are you up early tomorrow or something?” That hit home. You can’t simply not want a drink. There has to be drama. God forbid you just fancy a juice.

Alcohol or not, I still like to go to pubs. What can I say? It’s one place I’ve always felt comfortable… the noise, the slagging, the shared roar when someone gets knocked out… on a screen, I mean, of course. Live music has been ingrained in my heart since an early age, and there’s nothing like the hum of a session warming up in the corner, a voice rising over the clink of glasses.

I still love the craic, still shout at the telly during a match, still show up for the atmosphere and the banter. But when I sit down with a glass of water at a table full of pints, you’d swear I’d just pulled the pin on a grenade. Suddenly, everyone’s tense. My choice not to drink makes other people uncomfortable… and you have to ask yourself… why?

“Why aren’t you drinking?”

“Can’t you even have two or three? It’s John’s birthday.” Or it’s David’s last night of freedom. Or Jess just got back from America. There’s always something. Some reason. Some celebration. We’ve managed to wrap alcohol around every moment that’s meant to matter.

Even sport, the great temple of discipline and health, hasn’t been spared. Finished footy training? Let’s grab a beer. Going for a round of golf? Sure, let’s aim for a drink every second hole and be half-cut by the 11th. Then wrap it all up at the 19th hole… the only one that really counts… the bar. It’s so normalised, we don’t even notice it anymore.

But when someone doesn’t join in… when someone breaks the rhythm… it unsettles the whole performance. That’s when the questions start. Not usually out of concern. More often out of discomfort. Maybe even fear. Because if you’re stepping back, choosing not to join in, maybe it shines a light on something they haven’t wanted to look at.

So here’s where I get real with you.

The short answer to “Can’t you just have two or three?” is this:
I don’t want to.

And in a sane world, that should be enough.
But this isn’t a sane world.
And I’m crazy enough to know that.

The honest answer?
Because with me, two or three doesn’t always end at two or three.

Two or three can bleed into two or three days.

Then come the apologies.
The anxiety.
The blackouts.
The courtroom in my head, where I play judge, jury, and executioner. I’ve had enough of courtrooms, mentally and physically.

I’ve never woken up after a three-day bender thinking, “Great decisions were made these last few days.” More often, I’d come to dry-mouthed and heavy-hearted, retracing steps I couldn’t remember, trying to piece my self-worth back together from the nights(s) before.

Was it worth it?

That’s not to say I haven’t made mistakes sober. I’m still human, still daft sometimes. But the big ones? The life-threatening ones? The soul-destroying ones that take months to crawl back from? Every single one of them had drink in their corner, egging me on like some reckless hype-man.

And here’s what still baffles me: why does it unsettle people so much when someone doesn’t drink? Why was I so weird about it in the past?

Does sobriety act like a mirror some folks don’t want to look into?
Is it guilt? Insecurity?
Does choosing not to drink somehow put everyone else that is drinking under a microscope they’d rather avoid?
Or is it that quiet, creeping fear that maybe… just maybe… their own relationship with alcohol isn’t as casual as they’d like to believe?

Because the moment you say “I’m not drinking,” it’s like you’ve broken an unspoken contract.

We’re all in this together, no questions asked. Step outside those lines, and suddenly you’re shining a light on just how blurry they’ve become for everyone else.

But if you stick with it… if you sit there with your water or juice and weather the awkward glances… something shifts.

Slowly at first. Then all at once.

You start to see clearly. Not just the chaos you used to create but the chaos you used to accept.

You realise how much energy went into pretending you were fine when really, you were just functioning through the fog.

Over the past year, the clarity has been unreal. No more waking up in a panic, checking my phone with one eye open and a stomach full of dread. But it’s more than that. A quiet self-respect begins to grow. A feeling of finally living in alignment with who you want to be, not who you think others expect you to be.

Emotionally, I’m more stable. I’m not white-knuckling through guilt or patching up wreckage. I’m present with the people I love. I listen more. I remember more. I feel more… and yeah, sometimes that hurts, but at least it’s real. You can’t numb the pain without numbing the joy.

Spiritually… whatever that means to you… there’s been a re-connection with myself. A sense of truth. I’m not looking for answers at the bottom of a glass anymore.

And let’s not pretend getting drunk or high in Immigration Detention is hard. I’ve spent the last 11 months locked up but let’s just say it’s not exactly heavily policed. You think I couldn’t be getting smashed every night if I wanted to? You think a shot of Jack Daniels wouldn’t take the edge off some of the darkness here?

But I know what that road looks like. One drink becomes three. Three becomes ten. And then what? That’s not freedom. That’s a leash disguised as liberty. A trap dressed up as relief.

Here’s the hopeful part… I think the world is changing. Slowly. The sober-curious movement is growing. More people are questioning why drinking is the default. There are better alcohol-free options now. Younger generations don’t seem to see booze as a personality trait.

I’ve had more real belly laughs this year than ever before. I’ve shared more laughs with my girlfriend in the last 10 months than I’ve managed with anybody else in my whole life in that period of time… And I’m having those laughs in a bloody Detention Centre on video calls..completely sober! I can’t believe how lucky I am to have her through all this. If I can find true love and connection here, in this place, completely sober…imagine what’s waiting on the outside.

As she said last week “We count each day and we make each day count”…. And.. we do.

I’m not using alcohol to numb or escape. I genuinely like the person I see in the mirror. The people who love me don’t seem too disappointed that I’m not drinking. if anything, I sense a kind of relief.

Last June, just before I was detained, my sister came to visit. It was the first time we’d properly seen each other in ten years, and I was bracing for fireworks over my decision not to drink. We’re Irish, after all. But instead of conflict, we had an incredible time… her, her husband, my daughter, and me. I remember every second of it. And she wasn’t annoyed. In fact, I think she was proud.

Sobriety isn’t just for those who’ve hit rock bottom. It’s for anyone who wants clarity, connection, and freedom from the noise. It might not need to be forever, sometimes a break is needed. Whatever works for the individual.

I discovered something important too. When you’re down and out, when you’re depressed or detached, the person you don’t need to reach out to is the one who’ll sit and drink with you all day. I’ve sought out that person and I’ve been that person. That’s not help. That’s normalising the spiral. Enabling it. And you’ve got to go home sooner or later… physically and mentally. Only you can clean up your own house.

So if you’re reading this and something inside you is stirring… follow that. You don’t have to be broken to choose better. You don’t have to hit rock bottom to rise.

You’re not alone.
I didn’t go sober to become a saint. I went sober to save myself.
And it turns out… I quite like the guy I saved.

Will I stay sober, forever? I don’t know. But I know I”ll be sober for another day… and the day after that… I’m in an extremely fortunate position right now that I just haven’t been remotely tempted to drink for a very long time. Life’s very good without it.

Long may that continue.

Cheers and…

Stay Unshackled, My Friends

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