Sober with Kat (2026)

09/05/2021

7 million children are raised by an alcoholic parent in the US.

1 in 4 children encounter regular heavy alcohol abuse in their homes.

Since 2002, alcohol use disorder in women almost doubled, death rates are up and alcohol related emergency-room visits for women increased by 76%.

As a mother, who now barely uses social media, I still see “wine mom” memes regularly.

I regularly get advertised all you can drink buffets with a complimentary kids activities to keep the kids busy.

I’m looked at side ways when I don’t want to join the arts & wine class for mom and kid.

I’m regularly told by well-meaning strangers that wine is a great option to destress.

I’m bombarded with positive messaging around alcohol, as a woman and as a mother.

If it wasn’t for me actively seeking out sobriety content, I would not come across it.

Yet unsolicited positive alcohol messaging is all around me.

A substance that is responsible for 13.5% of deaths in my age group (20-39) according to WHO.

A substance that is often marketed to mothers and women as self-care. A substance we get told will make us a more relaxed, a more fun parent.

Parenting and alcohol abuse is a topic that’s very close to my heart. It destroys families, and everyone is a victim. Getting sober as a parent is hard. You can’t just take a week or two off to deal with it. But if alcohol is or starting to become a problem, sobriety is the best gift you can give yourself.

Quitting drinking had an impactful effect on my parenting. I am more present, less stressed, less uptight, less tired, less anxious, less depressed. I have better, deeper relationships, mental health and physical health. I feel good about myself. I feel alive again.

Funny, that only after I quit drinking did I get all the magical benefits that alcohol claims to give to mothers.

And this mother’s day, I wanted to share something I remind myself a lot as a mom and as a human:

You deserve a life that doesn’t feel unmanageable without alcohol, whether you drink or not.

You deserve to wake up feeling good.

You deserve health, and rest.

You deserve time for yourself.

You deserve to feel truly happy, however you define it for yourself. ❤️

24/01/2021

Quitting alcohol has been the biggest catalyst to leading a better life. But it wasn’t instant.

There was a period of survival and healing before the growth kicked in.

I tried getting sober many times. I always told myself that tomorrow would be different. It was self-inflicted madness. I loved alcohol in the evening and hated in the morning - a love/hate relationship that grew stronger by the week; until I reached rock bottom mentally and wanted out of my life. I genuinely thought it was easier than giving up alcohol.

That was when I knew I had to break that cycle, whatever it took and whatever I felt. I let go of the idea that I needed to be happy or feel good about sobriety, I just wanted to live . I would figure out the rest later. I spent the whole next day hungover, writing - trying to figure myself out.

The approach that worked for me was acceptance. Acceptance of where I was, and what I was feeling. Acceptance that my feelings weren’t permanent. That I need to stop numbing my feelings and sit through them, whatever it took. That it will be harder before it gets better.

It took me about 6 months to consistently and noticeably better. I hated that time. The first month or two I was lethargic and depressed, and then followed a rollercoaster of emotions. I would feel good about myself for a bit, only to crash again and again. I thought I was going crazy.

I look back now and it makes sense- not only was my brain chemistry out of whack from all the drinking, but I was unearthing so many emotions, insecurities and trauma I hid away for years.

I’ve now recently celebrated 2 years sober, and I can’t remember the last time I wanted a drink. And I love the person I’ve become.

If you’re struggling with alcohol, the more you push away that difficult healing period, the more shame and powerlessness builds up.

You will never ever regret quitting drinking too soon, and years from now, you will be forever grateful to you stuck with it.

And if you’ve just quit drinking, give yourself time to heal so you can grow. It gets better. There’s a beautiful life ahead once you navigate the storm, and it is worth it. Life’s too short to be wasted.

25/10/2020

This is your reminder to not compare yourself to other’s people’s progress but focus on your progress, your journey, where you were, where you are now, where you would like to be.

Sobriety will look different on everyone. It will feel different for everyone. It will be easier for some, and more difficult for others.

For some, it’s the key to kissing anxiety and depression goodbye. For some, it can feel more emotionally draining than drinking.

For some, sobriety strengthens the relationships with the people around them, but I have also seen how one person going sober in a couple can lead to divorce.

It’s not always a bad thing in the long run to realise a relationship wasn’t working. But it’s nonetheless a painful, stressful experience in the moment.

Some people feel more lonely, some people feel more connected.

Some people gain weight, some people loose weight.

Some people love it from the get go, some people hate it with every fibre in their body.

I only ask you not to give up on sobriety just because it didn’t “fix” everything you wanted it to fix. To not give up on it because some things may feel harder now.

You chose sobriety, because in one or another, alcohol wasn’t working for you. It was taking something away from you that you wanted back.

Maybe it’s your physical or your mental health, your time, your self-esteem. Maybe it’s because it was giving you something you didn’t want anymore - anxiety, regret, shame, hangovers.

Chances are if you made the (sometimes difficult) choice to try and give up alcohol, you had a really good reason.

Going sober might not fix everything, but it is the right step, even if it’s a difficult one. Because only once you are present, can you really start working on the stuff you need to work through. You can’t do that drunk.

Whatever you are still struggling with, whatever you are unhappy with, I guarantee you will be more able to deal with it sober than numbing it drunk.

14/10/2020

When someone who drinks finds out I don’t drink, the next question is almost always WHY? Maybe it’s shock,maybe it’s curiosity because it is so unusual.

I don’t usually mind answering, I like taking about sobriety.

But when I say I don’t smoke, no one is asking me why. When I say I want water instead of a soda, no one is asking me why.

There are plenty of socially accepted reasons not to, so it doesn’t usually require further explanation.

But there are so so many valid reasons to not drink.

I look at people around me who would be classed as “normal drinkers”, and drinking still tends to affect them in a negative way - they have dumb fights with their partner, complain about hangovers & not having enough time to pursue their dreams, but never miss out on an opportunity to have a drink.

And so that “why” sometimes feels weird. WHY do I need a reason to not consume a drug?

You don’t need to have a drinking problem to feel negative effects from booze.

Why do I need a reason to not consume something that’s toxic for my mind and my body?

Should the question not be the other way around? So when people ask me why I don’t drink, I started asking them why they do.

I usually get a blank, confused or annoyed stare. I guess no one really asks themselves why they do drink. It’s so socially ingrained to be the norm.

I stopped drinking because I had a problem. But if you asked me today, it’s definitely not the only reason I don’t drink. Knowing what I know today, I still wouldn’t drink even if I could. I don’t drink because my life is better without it. I don’t drink because I loathe hangovers. Because I like waking up not feeling like s**t. Because since I’ve stopped, I haven’t done anything I am ashamed of or regretted. Because I like being present. Because I enjoy other things a lot more now.

Having a drinking problem is what made me break up booze, but it’s the benefits that make me not want it back.

I, for one, can’t wait for the day until not drinking becomes a normal & valid physical & mental health choice & people stop assuming that the only reason you don’t drink is because you can’t, not because you don’t want to.

29/09/2020

No one starts drinking with the goal of get addicted to having a drink.

I don’t think many start drinking with even the thought in mind that we may become addicted to it. I don’t think many of us asked ourselves why we started drinking in the first place. We just did, because everyone else did too.

The message this world sends out is that drinking is normal and that’s how adults have fun and relax.

The question is not whether or not you should start drinking, but when.

You celebrate your 18th or 21st birthday with alcohol & then every birthday after that. You drink to your wedding and your divorce, with friends, on a date, after work with your colleagues, to celebrate a milestone or a promotion.

Drinking is practically expected in most life events or social gatherings.

In every other TV show, whenever someone is sad, the solution is always grab a drink.

Every other popular song has references to alcohol - in a fun, glamorous and exciting way.

We are born in a world that encourages consuming an addictive substance. That teaches us to connect with friends and lovers, to celebrate, to relax, to mourn with it.

And then that same world stigmatises people for becoming addicted to that addictive substance.

If you feel ashamed for not being to “control” your alcohol consumption, I want you to stop. It’s a pretty normal consequence to become addicted to an addictive substance you learn to rely on.

I look at the people I know who struggle with alcohol - people with trauma, people who are trying to fill a void, people who are overwhelmed and overworked. People who are lost.

I don’t think any of us should feel ashamed. The only mistake we made is to believe the lie that alcohol would make our lives better, more manageable, more fun.

A lie that is still pushed as the truth in this world.

Even with millions of people dying every year & countless millions more struggling, we’re still encouraged to drink. That we are creating a new generation that will struggle with exactly the same thing and die in millions from it instead of doing something substantial to change it.

That is what I think is shameful, not that you became addicted to an addictive substance.

25/09/2020

When I first got sober, I wrote myself a plan on how I would deal with strong cravings. I have a set of firm rules:

1. Not drink (obviously)- I remind myself that I will just feel worse tomorrow, and that in all my drinking days, drinking has never actually improved anything in my life.
2. No decisions when I’m emotionally all over the place. I don’t allow myself to make decisions out of fear or anxiety or sadness. All decisions have to be approved by calm Kat.
3. Journal. Journal. Journal some more - I brain dump everything that is on my mind, and label the emotions I am experiencing. I then write about my day, about what is getting to me, about why it’s getting to me, if it’s actually important or if I’m blowing it out of proportion, and what are some actionable steps (solutions) I can take right now & in the long run.
4. I do something enjoyable or that makes me feel better even if I don’t want to do it. Usually it’s clean my room, draw, paint or read.
5. Eat. Rest. Nap. Sleep.
6. Everything else can wait.
7. I wrote myself a letter when I first got sober to future me in the case that she was ever close to drinking again, and I promised to read it before I would ever drink again. The letter is still sealed.

Once I feel better, I journal some more.

Sobriety is a lot more than not drinking. So your plan to stay sober should be more than just not drinking. Having a simple plan helps you have something tangible to do when the cravings hit and you just can’t think clearly.

If you don’t know where to start, you can use my plan as a base, or think of things that previously help you and base it off of that.

If you don’t journal; start journaling. It really does help to see things from a different perspective & process emotions. It’s a perfect release for frustration, and to work through things like shame and anxiety.

Emotions come and go: learning to not act on them is a skill that everyone should practice.

A trigger is exactly that, a strong emotion that pushes us to act. You don’t need to hide from it, or numb it, or act on it. Breathe through it, and figure out what it’s trying to tell you. This s**t is fuel for personal growth.

23/09/2020

I recently asked you guys what you found most difficult about sobriety. Boredom was the top answer. So here are some reasons you may feel bored:

1. You’re actually depressed. Getting sober, there was this distinct feeling of numbness. I didn’t enjoy anything. Everything felt dull. What we call being “bored” can easily overlap with depression symptoms. If you feel disconnected & find nothing stimulating, this may be a symptom of depression.
2. Your brain is still adapting- if you drugged your brain with a substance that messes with your neurotransmitters for years, it’s not just gonna bounce back to functioning perfectly the moment you quit.
3. You don’t expose yourself to stimulating stuff. If you spent dozens of hours every week drinking & if you haven’t replaced the time with something else, you’re spending a lot of time doing nothing.
4. You hold the belief that alcohol is fun, therefore sobriety = boring. How we perceive things directly impacts how we experience them. You focus too much on what you are “missing out” & idealise the experience, instead of focusing on what you are gaining.
5. You feel lonely.you have no sober friends or you don’t has as much in common with your current friends now that you’re sober. There’s a ton of sober groups all over the world & you can still enjoy time with your friends in non-drinking hours, like going for a hike, a brunch, a mani pedi, a yoga class, a coffee. If your friends don’t ever want to do non-drinking things, reevaluate the friendship.

What did you like to do as a kid that stopped doing as you started drinking? Start doing that again.

Is there something you have always wanted to learn? Sign up to a class, start a course, get a book on something you’ve always wanted to know more about.

Want to learn an instrument? watching youtube tutorials.

If you’re craving a stronger natural high: start running, dancing, bungee jumping, boxing.

Whatever you do don’t just sit there doing nothing. If you don’t know what to do, pick something simple and just do it. Try out different things. Start experiencing new things. There are so many exciting things in this world, you may be surprised by what sets your soul on fire.

20/09/2020

I just spent my last weekend in Switzerland this year. we’re flying back to Dubai next week.

We went to the mountains, looked for crystals (and found some!), saw dozens of baby frogs, groundhogs, cows and grasshoppers, walked down a breathtaking mountain.

I’m in the train heading back home now, and my heart is just so full.

I used to hate Sunday evenings; I’d be anxious, hangover and never ready for the next week.

This Sunday evening, I’m physically exhausted, but mentally rested and so so happy.

I’m so happy I traded in the excessive highs and lows from booze for this kind of natural high. I just feel high on life. A sense of freedom I never felt when I drank.

I’m so happy I got to be fully present with my little one. We spent all weekend talking and laughing, about gemstones and airplanes and even cow p**p. She experienced so many firsts; gem hunting, hiking, seeing groundhogs, riding in a mountain cable car.

I saw her eyes light up more times this weekend then during the whole year when I had relapsed. We rarely did anything. I was too anxious and overwhelmed to organise anything at all, and I didnt trust myself going on a weekend trip with her.

I remember being afraid of missing out on life if I quit drinking. the fear felt so real. Alcohol had such a strong grip over me that I could not imagine my life without it. I thought my life was over and I would never have fun again.

I now know that my life just started as I got sober again. I was missing out on so much of my life while i was drinking.

Going sober doesn’t make you miss out on life. It gives you the opportunity to live it to the fullest.

18/09/2020

It blows my mind that sobriety is something that is seen as not normal. Something inconvenient to others.

I have gotten so many comments from men:

“It must be boring being sober”

“But drinking is so romantic!”

Several weeks ago, I got a DM to go on a wine date, ON THIS ACCOUNT where I literally only talk about being sober.

Today I got another DM. He found me on bumble where I mention specifically I am Only looking for someone sober. Somehow, found my IG from it. I told him thank you, but I’m not interested in dating someone who drinks (he had Beer & Gin Lover in his bio), and wished him the best.
He got offended for “judging him based on what he drinks and not who he is” & went on a mini rant. while I was tempted to explain myself, it’s just not my fu***ng job to justify myself AGAIN to a stranger as to why NOT drinking is important to me.

You would think of all places, this IG would filter out the BS.

I felt like I had to tiptoe around people who drank to not make them feel uncomfortable. Because so many of them do and they show it. I felt like I owed everyone an apology for not drinking with them.

Only once in my whole life, did someone try to make ME feel comfortable. I met up with a girl. As we were choosing drinks, the fact that I didn’t drink came up. She opted for something lalcohol free & didn’t drink the whole night. When I asked her why, she told me she knew sobriety can be hard & didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable. She just felt like it was the KIND thing to do. I will seriously remember this moment for the rest of my life. I felt so seen.

Yes, drinking is the norm.

But seriously, f**k what the norm is. F**k social expectations. Especially when they are damaging to you.

Not too long the norm was completely different. Women didn’t drink as much, everyone was smoking & single moms were damaged goods.

The norms change all the time by people stepping out & changing the norms.

Sober people should be proud of themselves just like people are proud of themselves for eating clean or going to the gym. No explanation required.

Going sober is something you do to improve the quality of your life.There shouldn’t be anything abnormal about it

16/09/2020

I DIDN’T GET HOW SELF-LOVE WORKS.

I tried telling myself I was good enough.I felt like I was just trying to bulls**t myself. In the back of my mind, my thoughts were echoing how I felt in my childhood. “You’re not good enough, you’re not clever enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re nothing special, nobody likes you.”

I wanted to love myself, but I didn’t, and I didn’t get what I was supposed to do about it.

We’re all told that we should love ourselves, but how many of us truly actually do?

Have you ever tried to force yourself to love someone? Did it work?

You can’t force yourself to love someone. Even if that someone is yourself.

The same way you can’t just force yourself into feeling happy, or less sad, or less anxious either. I’m sure you’ve tried. But you what you can do is work on the thoughts, the mindset and the external factors contributing to those emotions, and change them from within.

I strongly believe self-love is key to long term sobriety and happiness & I don’t think many people start their sober journey with a healthy amount of self-love.

Self-love fills the void that alcohol could not fill. It helps you put your wellbeing first. It kills the constant need of approval, the need to fit in, the self-sabotaging behaviour.

Self-love helps you navigate your relationships better & cut out s**t that isn’t good for you.

If you don’t like yourself, you’re not gonna start magically liking yourself just because you really want to.

You need to pick apart all the things you don’t like about yourself & decide if this is something you will work on changing or if it’s something that you want to learn to love and accept.

To me, self-love is not an action but a feeling: the result of consistent actions, healthier thought patterns & a solution oriented mindset, from practicing self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-care and self-improvement.

From there, loving myself grew naturally, because I started to value myself & appreciate myself.

If you’ve tried hating yourself into becoming a different person & that didn’t work; try practicing consistent actions that can help you love yourself into becoming a different person. It works.

14/09/2020

WINE MEMES🙄🤔: There’s few things I dislike more than memes telling me I “deserve” a drink for parenting and praising the magical powers of wine.

“Wine is to women as duct tape is to men… it fixes everything!”

“I make wine disappear, what’s your super power?”

“Always remember, there is no problem that 6 glasses of wine can’t solve.”

“I want my kids to be good at maths, but not so good that they can count how many glasses of wine I’ve had.”

“Technically, you’re not drinking alone if your kids are home.”

These are all quotes that get hundreds of thousands of likes. Apparently they are just harmless jokes. But are they?

Maybe I’m an uptight bitch, but normalising heavy drinking and glamourising daily drinking, drinking alone and hiding how much we drink IS HARMFUL. And not funny. These are literally the criteria that qualify you as someone who has a drinking problem.

By normalising “red flags” and downplaying signs of addictive behaviour, we are preventing women (and men) from realising something IS wrong and that they are going down a slippery slope that may practically destroy their lives or even kill them.

We are telling people that the solution to everything is more booze. It’s not.

Alcohol is massive fu***ng problem. Not for everyone. But for society as a whole. For the person that is trapped under the alcohol spell, their kids, their partner, their parents.

It Is the leading cause of death globally for those aged 15-49.

In the last ten years, alcohol related deaths rose 67% for women.

Since 2002, problem drinking almost doubled.

I’m so fu***ng tired of “you deserve a drink after a long day” marketing.

You know what you deserve?

Good health, physically and mentally. You deserve not feeling hungover and anxious. You deserve time for yourself. You deserve a life that doesn’t desperately make you numb yourself.

None one should fu***ng “deserve” a drug just to cope with their daily life.

13/09/2020

I HATED sobriety.

I didn’t magically feel better. The first weeks, I was just as anxious, lethargic and depressed.

The first few months, I wanted to escape from my own mind, more than anything.

I still felt stuck, and barely surviving.

Physically, I still felt exhausted. I thought I would at least loose some weight, I didn’t. I thought my skin would magically improve, it didn’t.

I didn’t “perceive” any instant benefits. All the “benefits” really started to kick in for me after 6 months. Everything just felt 10 times harder and I hated being in my own head.

I didn’t have the coping skills, any self-esteem, any drive to do anything. It felt like I had to rebuild myself from scratch.

Sobriety is so much more than not drinking. Not drinking, is step one; that enables you to actually see and work on all that other s**t that is dragging you down that you used to mask with booze.

If sobriety feels hard, to me, that’s the biggest sign that sobriety is the right choice for you. People who don’t have a drinking problem don’t find sobriety hard.

If you spend most of your adult life, building your life, personality and hobbies around booze, it’s going to take time to rebuild.

If you used alcohol to cope with your feelings, everything is going to feel a lot harder at first.

But every time I chose myself over booze, it got a little tiny bit easier, until it felt easy.

Every time I chose myself over booze, I grew stronger, until I actually felt strong.

And every time I chose to deal with what was bringing me down instead of drowning it in alcohol, I healed, until I finally felt whole.

So if you’re feeling crappy in early sobriety and not loving the s**t out of it, that’s okay, even normal.

The benefits of sobriety can take some time to kick in, don’t give in right before they do.

Sober with Kat

09/05/2021

24/01/2021

25/10/2020

14/10/2020

29/09/2020

25/09/2020

23/09/2020

20/09/2020

18/09/2020

16/09/2020

14/09/2020

13/09/2020

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