A year and two weeks ago I started a 364-day Hello Sunday Morning.

When I stopped drinking, I didn't really expect or believe that I could actually go sober for that long a time period. I didn't think I could do it. Even now, it seems like a crazy decision - an undertaking that was bold beyond my capabilitis. But I was driven to it because I was desperate.

My drinking was out of control: I felt anxious and depressed all the time, and I felt ashamed because I kept the worst of my habit hidden. I was not the loud party drunk who stays up all night having a great time; I had been that when I was younger, but as I hit my late twenties I turned into the quiet stay at home type. I was no longer always drinking to have fun. More often, I was drinking to cope with stress, to numb my emotions, and to forget about the pain I was feeling as a depressed person.

At the start of 2011, I knew I had to make a radical change in order to get a handle on my drinking habit. i had tried moderation and failed at it. Feb Fast 2010 had been great in giving me the confidence to believe that I might be able to change, but the old habits snuck easily back in once that month was over. I was drunk when I made the decision to go sober for a year, I was drunk when I sent out the email, and I remained inebriated for a few days after as well; I drank a lot of vodka and felt paralysed with anxiety about what lay ahead. It was a very scary time for me.

I was scared about giving up something I loved and enjoyed (or thought I did). I was scared about stepping into the unknown. Who would I be without drinking? Would I be able to have fun? How would I cope with pain? Travel, parties, events, festivals, flying, celebrations, commisserations, sex, fancy dining: how would I do these things without alcohol? And why would I want to? I couldn't imagine it. But the desire to be in control of my drinking increasingly started to outweigh the objections and fears that I had. As I wrote at the time,

I've been drinking while travelling, dating, working, writing etc for years now and it hasn't exactly lead to a great place.So how would my life look without it?

Coming across Brene Brown's TedX talk on vulnerability was the turning point:

She says: when we numb our hard and scary feelings, we numb everything. So when I drink to deal, I'm also numbing my ability to be connected, to be happy, and to be joyous. This is probably obvious to everyone in the world but it really struck a chord with me.

So I took the plunge. I did the brave - and vulnerable - thing, and decided to stop drinking for a year.

It was hard. It was so hard. I felt raw and emotional and awful for quite a while. I also dealt with the fallout of having publicly admitting to having a drinking problem. I got a lot of feedback and support from all sorts of quarters, and though it was all encouraging, I felt pretty exposed. I also spent a bit of time talking with friends who hadn't realised I had a problem. Like I said, I wasn't always the party drunk. During my initial few weeks of sobriety, I concentrated on just getting through the days. The fact that I'd committed publicly made a massive difference; it kept me going.

Things got easier, of course. But it took time. At the six week mark I was still struggling - with the not-drinking, and the enormity of the project I had taken on. I didn't know if I could make the distance. As I wrote then:

In a way my project sober reminds me of the Buddhist pilgrimage I did in 2008. I hiked 1200kms on my own in Japan (then wrote a book about it). If I'd truly understood at the beginning how long and difficult the pilgrimage was going to be I probably wouldn't have started, however, getting through it was a monumental achievement and there is no better feeling than knowing that I did it! I still feel a thrill when I think about it. I'm hoping that being sober for a year is similar - an epic challenge that has a huge payoff at the end... so I'm going to keep my eye on the prize and remain sober, no matter how hard it might get.

I was still struggling at three months. I was pretty much on top of not drinking myself, but my habits were still aligned with booze culture - going out, being around other drinking people. So I felt like I was missing out a lot. But harder than that even, was the realisation that I didn't really know how to cope without alcohol, and I didn't really know who I was without drinking. At that stage, a year still seemed like a really, really, REALLY long time - even though I had knocked a quarter off already.

One of the hardest things is redefining how I see myself and accepting that others will see me differently. The most common responses when I say I'm not drinking are 'oh you're so responsible' or 'wow you've got so much willpower' or even 'I couldn't do that it's too much fun' and I quite often perceive these comments to really mean 'wow aren't you boring'.

The issue of identity stayed with me. Yes, I was kicking goals in regards to things I was scared to do without booze - travel, sex, festivals, fancy dinners etc. But really those events are just physical acts, and I was still coping with the emotional fallout around living my life sober. I had to face up to a lot of stuff, and it wasn't always easy. In particular I thought a lot about who I wanted to be - and who I didn't want to be.

One of the questions I'm facing as a now-non-drinker is, who am I without it? I don't want to be defined by what I'm not doing (drinking). I think that's a big part of my problem with alcohol - it's been a huge part of my identity, not just something I do. I'm starting to realise that physically not-ingesting alcohol might not be the hardest thing I do this year. Rather, looking inwards - and figuring out who I am, who I could be, and who I want to be - might just be the biggest challenge I face this year.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom. At the five month mark I was on an absolute high from running my festival sober. I was so energetic and focussed right across the whole festival, it really made me realise how draining alcohol is, and how much I had been handicapping my potential by drinking so much, so often. The previous year, I had run a great festival while drinking throughout, but in 2011 I ran a brilliant festival and had a fantastic time while feeling on top of my game across the whole eleven days. (The only low light was not drinking on the final night of the festival; I did kind of feel like I was missing out then.)

And that's when the tide started to shift for me. That's when I started thinking less about not-drinking, and more about getting on with life. At the six and seven month mark, I became incredibly frustrated with Australia's drinking culture and started changing my going-to-bars habit. I wasn't a drinker, and I was bored of drunk people, so it became a no-brainer to avoid those kinds of situations. This did mean less socialising for a bit, but my connections with people were more meaningful when I did hang out with them. I also got way back into reading, and maximising my time in general. When you don't drink, there are plenty of hours in the day to get all kinds of shit done. Vitally, I no longer felt I was missing out. Then I rode my bike across the mofo NULLARBOR PLAIN - and didn't feel tempted to drink once. That was massive.

By the nine month mark, I had pretty much lost any desire to drink. I had wanted to quit for a year to give myself the time and space to form new, healthy drinking habits - but at some point along the way, I had kinda just lost the desire for alcohol. If I could do everything sober, then what was the point of drinking? The idea of drinking was just not a big deal, and I certainly wasn't counting down until February to get my booze back on again. Not drinking had become the new habit.

Interestingly though, the not-drinking didn't bring about a new lease on life. Actually, the last few months of the year, and the start of January this year, were really hard for me emotionally. In hindsight, I can see that it's probably because I suddenly had the headspace and clarity to be facing my issues. Rather than numbing the pain or concentrating on getting through the day, I had the time to think about the areas of my life that I was unhappy with. I'm guessing there was also still a behaviour-change disconnect going on; drinking was no longer a habit, but questions about my identity had yet to be resolved. At the end of the year I was a total sad sack, actually, and I even went through a period of questioning whether not drinking for a year had been worth it!

And then... the year was up. I'd been sober for twelve months. How did I mark the occassion? I didn't really. At the end of January I realised my sober year was coming to an end, and thought, that's interesting. Then the day came, and passed. And the next, and the next. I had an ice cream and thought, cool. If I could go back in time twelve months, drunk Lisa would not have been able to believe it. Amazingly I didn't even really feel a great sense of accomplishment - and nor did I have any desire to drink. My priorities and habits had shifted, and alcohol was no longer a part of my life equation.

The funny thing is, I've been really super-charged since mid-January. I did a detox and made some changes to my diet, and since then I've been feeling focussed, and energetic and happy. But I think the not-drinking has played a major part in that, even more so than the diet changes. I expected to feel awesome way earlier in my year of sobriety, to tell the truth. But in reality my moods, emotions and anxieties were the same as they had been when I was drinking - sometimes up, sometimes down. (Though the downs were less harsh when I was sober.) But maybe I've been 'detoxing' for a whole year - or, given how loaded the word 'detox' is, should I say... recharging? I've been drinking since I was fifteen (I'm 32), so it's not unreasonable to consider that it took me the better part of a year to get over that, both physically and emotionally. Whatever the explanation, right now I'm feeling pretty damn awesome about life, and the not-drinking is a major part of that.

So where to from here? Am I sober for life? I don't know. All I know is that I don't have any desire to drink at the moment. My life is extremely busy right now, and I don't want to waste a moment by being tipsy or hungover. I've set a few goals for 2012, and drinking doesn't play any part in them.

That said, I am curious about how having a drink will affect me - but I feel cautious about it also. I know it's a slippery slope, and I think I'm especially susceptible to addictive behaviour and pushing boundaries. So while I'd like to be someone who can enjoy one really good beer or glass of sparkling, I don't know if I'm there yet. I'm just going to keep playing it by ear, taking each week as it comes, and see how I feel about things at every step along the way. What is awesome about that plan is: I am in control, something I couldn't even imagine being possible twelve months ago.

That feeling of control is my biggest gain, the best thing to come out of twelve months of sobriety. Or perhaps a better word is power. I feel powerful, and powerfully in control. I've conquered not drinking for a year, perhaps the biggest undertaking of my adult life, and as a result I feel like I can do anything. I've never felt so unstoppable, or so hopeful about the future. Sure I still have self esteem issues, and emotional hangups, and problems (who doesn't?), but they no longer feel crippling or out of control. Instead, when I think about my goals for the coming months and years, I think - yep, I can do that.

And that's a way better feeling than I ever got from being drunk.

Love,

Lisa x