Welcome back to season 7 of the Legends Podcast. A quick reminder that there could be some swearing and be gentle with yourself if you are struggling with addiction.

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Sobriety is bloody hard - and it gets easier and it also doesn’t.

I am baby-sober. 

Being sober or alcohol-free is a daily practice and ritual that I am ever-mindful about. Nothing and I do, and I  mean nothing I have ever done, studied, practiced or achieved in life comes even close to how hard and revealing giving up drinking alcohol has been. Nothing. In this recording, I make attempts to make sense of the past year, yet it is still unfolding in front of me - 38 years worth of committed boozing is not unfurled in one year. Yet unfurl it does. Over and over like the seasons, like nature, like a fern on a forest floor in the dark and light.  As such the podcast episode is a long, rambling, creative musing about my first-year-foray into an alcohol-free life.

It’s just me, sharing my experience and making sense of it, reporting it and creating the legend around it in real-time and is by no means a call to action, OH HELL NO nor a virtuous journey into my new-found sobriety, SWEET LORD NO; nor is it in any way shape or form meant as a way to encourage others to get sober or a laundry list of all the amazing benefits I have felt now. I’m a better person.

I am better - but only better than me before. 

And it’s hard.

It has been a year since I last drank alcohol, when at my ten-year-in-business celebration I observed myself drinking knowing that the next day I had booked my first session with the Alcohol Mindset Coach (watch this space, no really, she’s next week’s guest, on the actual one-year anniversary of our first coaching session). At 6 months sober I wrote this essay about my experience.

And I remind myself that I am always baby sober. Always, always, always baby sober as my relationship with alcohol will always be unpredictable. Any person who has an unpredictable relationship with alcohol, I now wonder, as myself, I wonder if the relationship can ever be a functioning one - or will it always be a bit mad? Even when I have years and years of sobriety behind me, 1 drink, 2 drinks, 3 drinks will likely lead me into a blackout and unpredictable outcomes. These are the outcomes I will not risk. And oh it feels very good to type this.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram or Facebook.

In this Creative Musings episode, you’ll hear:

• The difference between a ‘full-blown alcoholic’ or all-day drinker, and a binge drinker (and how upset I get when I feel love and respect for people with severe alcohol addiction)
• How short the journey from heavy binge-drinker to an addicted alcoholic is very short 
• My history with binge-drinking and how it escalated over the years
• The 3 shocking recent incidents that led me to STOP
• The benefits of drinking that I miss and how I satisfy those benefits
• The holy hell of the first 3 months, the 6 month point and how it’s going now

About Sarah Furuya

Sarah Furuya lives in the hills, by the sea South of Tokyo, near the sacred shores of Kamakura, and from there she runs SF Creative. She runs a boutique executive and life coaching practice, the Lighthouse Grief Support Circle, organises Tokyo’s most popular Clothing & Style Swaps, and records the Legends Podcast. The heart of her coaching practice is the many ways to lead a life, working with and telling people’s stories and working with their unique style. She honours all the style, stories and diversities at play in a person’s life, is a trained ORSC™ Systems Coach, a Certified Psychometric Practitioner, and holds a BSc Hons in Human Biology and Human Psychology. She sits on the Board of Refugee Empowerment International (REI).

Connect with Sarah

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sarah-furuya-creative

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfuruyacreative/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahfuruyacreative

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsuS_yVT9fMHjhAylVy8-w