MY STORY

Sam Roome is a Sober Coach with an ICF-accredited diploma in Positive Psychology and Alcohol-free coaching who diversified from a 20-year career as a chartered accountant when it became her mission to normalise the conversation around alcohol. She is a keen writer on the subject and through speaking is on a mission to get the sober conversation into the workplace. She stopped drinking in June 2020. In her spare time Sam is training to become a counsellor and volunteers for services that support addiction and supports a local sober group.

As a child to two alcoholic parents Sam always knew the damage that alcohol can do if left unchecked. It just took a while to realise the potential damage of a “normal” drinking habit. As a working mum of three and with a child with a rare chromosome disorder Sam speaks to the energy and positivity that removing alcohol can bring to life.

It’s the side to the story no one shared with her:

The energy hack that is shrouded in secrecy.

Her mission is to make the sober experience available to anyone who is curious. Every aspect of her book, her coaching and her courses is supported with that energy. This is an entirely positive step if you choose to take it and Sam makes it possible.

MY BOOK

EXPECTED COMBINATION

Before

Alcohol was a part of my life for three decades. I drank to relax, to have fun, to calm my nerves and to drown my sorrows. Didn’t we all? In the early years I chose when to drink and I chose when not to. I would only ever have considered myself a “normal” drinker.

Adulthood and alcohol consumption were an expected combination.

When I became a mum I entered an entirely new phase of my life, no not parenthood itself, but the mummy wine culture! Suddenly there seemed infinitely more opportunities to drink more regularly. I had three children including a daughter with a rare chromosome disorder and autism diagnosis. So I felt I had complete justification to enthusiastically pursue my social mummy drinking hobby which later became a domestic one. But again, my consumption was “normal” by societal standards so why should I worry?

“The warnings were out there for those with a serious drinking habit. They didn’t apply to me.”

ALCOHOL WAS MY LIFE

During

There is most often a trigger to the drinking shift. You didn’t start out knowing it would become an unwanted habit – a relationship change, work pressure, unresolved trauma, financial pressures, environmental shift. Parenthood was mine. Lack of my own child history and my daughter’s diagnosis possibly added fuel to the fire.

But at some point alcohol consumption had become the only way I knew to do life.

It moved from being an occasional choice to a habit and then an unwanted habit. I had started to completely rely on it and my volume increased as my habit increased my tolerance. Over time I noticed that alcohol was having an increasingly negative impact on me – the hangxiety (explained in my book) but then an underlying feeling of a grey life. I was ticking all the boxes (job, family, friends, a sprinkling of a hobby) but hadn’t noticed it had all become harder and I wasn’t actually enjoying a lot of it. I was noticing that alcohol was becoming my only method of alleviating so many moods and this started to worry me. I knew I needed to change.

But why did it take so long?

NO ALCOHOL - YOUR KIDDING?

Awareness

No one ever highlighted that anything less than alcoholism was a problem. My parents were alcoholics and the result was a very broken childhood. As long as I avoided alcoholism I was fine. So I didn’t see any other viable options. I don’t think there were any real alternatives marketed to me with the same enthusiasm as consuming alcohol.

“I literally never considered doing life without it.”

I knew from observing my mother’s interaction with alcohol support that I didn’t want to follow the path that abstinence was going to be a hard slog and that I would have to be permanently reminded that I couldn’t drink. Something was telling me that this could be a really positive thing, it could be a choice rather than a life sentence.

THE BEST THING EVER!

Sobriety

I found an online challenge to act as a kickstart (followed by Quit lit (books around not drinking, like my own), podcasts, free online groups.

There is so much support and connection out there.

What was quite unexpected was the impact removing alcohol had on me. I had always thought not drinking was something reserved for the unlucky few, those with a “serious” problem although as discussed no one actually really defines that. No one actually wants to become sober! I had no idea that in fact sobriety would be the best thing I could ever do for myself. I didn’t plan for it and I certainly didn’t see it coming.

I discovered myself hidden beneath the alcohol fog.

My Life Now

So how does life look for me now? If I told you I literally don’t recognise my life would you believe me? It’s true. I didn’t ask to be given a new life but that’s exactly what I got.