I was around 14 when I started drinking. My dad and both my grandads were alcoholics, which deeply affected my family. Their deaths were all premature and difficult. I got sober on 11th Dec 2018, aged 26. Around that time, I also ended a five-year relationship with an alcoholic. For a while I struggled to admit my drinking and substance (mis)use had been an issue, not due to shame, but due to a feeling of imposter syndrome, because I had always been high-functioning, and never experienced a rock bottom as bad as other people’s. Only after three years of practicing sobriety on my own with no support have I come to realize that it’s still a massive struggle for me. Drinking was such an enormous part of my life, I couldn’t imagine a life without it. Now, sobriety is fundamental to my life, as I was not able to address a lot of issues, trauma, and gender dysphoria while self-medicating with alcohol and drugs.I love my sober journey, but it is also somewhat alienating, as I rarely encounter people I can relate to on this level. Regardless, sobriety has allowed me to love myself and others in a way previously entirely inaccessible to me.