Love your sober summer

+ Kate Baily shares tips on how to opt-into a healthy season

Kate Baily

from Love Sober joins SUMMER SOBER and shares her secrets to a thriving summer + a super fun offering for connection in the following guest post.

If you connect with this post, share with a friend who needs to be encouraged that it is possible to have fun and stay healthy during the summer months. Text SUMMER to 888-920-9446 for your free How to SUMMER SOBER guide + a free invite for a live event with Caroline next Tuesday 6/4.

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The summer is lush. I’m not complaining.

But it can be tricky to navigate our sobriety in the summer.

Looking at the usual triggers: HALT (meaning Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired), these are essentially states of depletion that lead to imbalance and trigger us to self-soothe to meet whatever the need is.

Often we do this in a maladaptive way, with many returning to drinking alcohol.

Although the lighter summer mornings beckon us out of bed and the light evenings lend themselves to socialising, we can very easily get depleted in the summer.

There is a natural fiery go-go-go energy around, which would be fine if we had been hibernating all winter, but since we live in a 24/7, productivity-obsessed culture, I doubt any of us put our feet up, really.

Cue those HALT states, leading to drinking triggers.

Photo by Ryan Moreno on Unsplash

Ways to Thrive (and not just survive)

"You can say ’no’ and you are allowed to opt out, even in the summer. You get to choose."

There are many other reasons summer can be more exhausting than relaxing. If we are parents, the period of school closure can nearly break us – juggling work and family is no mean feat. And all that GUILT about having 'perfect' summers and 'making memories' certainly doesn’t help.

If we’re not parents or carers, we can still feel that guilt to be making the most of summer somehow. We can easily be TOAST-ed - Thirsty, Overwhelmed, Angry, Socialised-out, and Tired. OK, I made that up. But putting my rather extreme and all-encompassing summer trigger acronym aside, how can we keep our sober cool in the heat of summer?

The On-the-go Sober Toolkit. Planning, setting realistic expectations, factoring in downtime, self-talk, and boundaries are all important when approaching the summer. And as people who don’t drink, managing overwhelm and triggers is part of this, too. One practical way of feeling in control and like you have got this is an On-the-go Toolkit. If you feel like you’re prepared for anything, you’ll be less anxious and less likely to hit the F-it button.

This Toolkit is a bit like a nappy bag, for those who remember them...or your favorite clutch. It has EVERYTHING in it, no matter what size it is.

Photo by Evelyn Semenyuk on Unsplash

Here are some ideas for putting together your own sober version, with suggestions from some of the Love Sober Members (this list focuses heavily on sensory needs and self-regulation – feel free to adapt and change as needed to suit you and what you need the Toolkit for!):

Phone - with apps for sober groups, sober buddies, soothing music, breathing techniques etc.

Noise-cancelling headphones - possibly one of Mandy's greatest gifts to me! Water/isotonic drink/alcohol-free drink

Emergency sweets or chocolate - for sudden low sugar moments (courtesy of Catherine & Claire in the Love Sober group)

Layers and a big shawl scarf to stay cozy inside in the air conditioning

Essential oil roll-on (courtesy of Emma Sobersonic)

Chewing gum, which can be good for releasing jaw tension - Jo is a fan of the jaw release!

Notepad and pen Screensaver with inspiring quotes on it, for times when you need a reminder to keep going

Quit-lit (books about stopping drinking)

Sunglasses (whether it's bright or not)

Taxi or ride-hailing app on your phone so you can leave whenever you want (if you’re not driving)

Add your own items!

Experiment and see what works for you to keep you cool, calm and collected and bossing your sobriety when things heat up.

We all have sensory needs, and becoming adept at managing them and meeting them in healthy ways is a power tool for keeping overwhelm and drinking triggers at bay when we are out and about. Remember you can leave whenever you want, you can say ’no’ and you are allowed to opt out, even in the summer. You get to choose.

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Check out more from Kate here and learn about her one-month self-paced online course ‘ Love Yourself Sober’. Based on her book of the same name this sober, self-care habit change course is available to you half price at £47 for a limited time.

Kate Baily is an ICF Accredited  trauma-informed Sobriety, Behavioural Health  and Life Coach specialising in habit change,  holistic well-being for women, midlife, perimenopause transition and stress management. She was a finalist in The International Coaching Awards in 2019. A SHE RECOVERS® Coach,  means that she is trained in and her work aligns with the SHE RECOVERS® Intentions & Guiding Principles. She is a Specialist Coach Trainer for The Coaching Academy in Addictive Behaviours & Habit Change. She also holds certificates in The Science of Happiness Theory and Facilitation, the Neurobiology of Stress,  Counseling & Advanced Menopause Support. She also is co-author of two best-selling books on holistic sober living Love Yourself Sober (Welbeck 2020) and Love Your Sober Year (Hachette 2022.) Love Sober is proud to work in collaboration with The Coaching Academy, ARCO, Changing Chances and  She Recovers.