For almost Alison Calder's entire career she was surrounded by wine. At work meetings, formal events and social occasions, the drinks were often flowing.
To her friends, colleagues and acquaintances, Alison was a 'party animal' who simply 'liked a drink'. But in private, booze was fuelling a spiral of self-hate.
"I should have realised that the alcohol industry probably wasn't for me," Alison, 41, told the Manchester Evening News. "But I just really felt like, if I just kept trying to moderate more successfully, I'd be able to carry on my career and have the business that I wanted."
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Mum-of-two Alison, from Cheadle, was working part-time as a waitress while at university when she was offered the chance to train as a sommelier. She worked at a Michelin star restaurant for a couple of years, before working for a wine company in the UK.
"It was very boozy," said Alison. "I suppose what wouldn't normally be acceptable, was acceptable.
"We'd have team meetings, if we were staying over they'd give us champagne at breakfast and throughout team meetings, suppliers would bring alcohol in. That's great for people who have a happy, healthy relationship with alcohol, but for people who struggle to moderate - which was me - it probably started a slippery slope that I didn't want to be on."
After giving birth to her first child eight years ago, Alison decided to set up her own company, running events in south Manchester. She met new people through her work and many became friends, while alcohol still played a key part in her career.
It was also began playing a major role in her personal life too. The 'champagne breakfasts' in her old job had been replaced by a drink at home after work. Drinking became 'less of a fun thing to do and more of a habit'.
"It wasn't everyday," said Alison. "But I always drank more than I wanted to."
By this time, Alison knew that drinking and working in the industry was going against her 'gut instinct'. She tried to set herself rules and time periods for not drinking, before cutting them short with the next glass.
"It was always day four, I felt a bit better and then it was almost like a celebration, so I'd have a drink," Alison said. "It was just a constant being stuck in a spiral.
"Outwardly, for anyone looking in, everything was fine - but it was the way that it made me feel." At her worst, Alison says that she would drink to the level of 'wanting to black out almost'.
On the first few occasions she told some friends that she was struggling with alcohol, Alison would be told 'you're not that bad'. "That probably made me stay doing what I was doing for longer," she said.
"There was one friend in all the years I was drinking heavily... who said 'you can't keep trying to keep up with the lads, because you're drinking wine'. At the time I was so furious with her.
"But now I think, bless her, she saw I was struggling and she was trying to help. I obviously rejected that because I was so defensive, but I knew deep down she was completely right."
Alison spent periods of time without drinking, during her two pregnancies, and again for part of 2019. The sober experiences made her feel 'so happy' and Alison began to focus on what her future could look like.
But alcohol still kept finding a way of 'sneaking back' into her life - and 'battering' her mental health. "I knew what I could have [without alcohol] and I was becoming more and more frustrated with myself that I was continuing to do something that I knew didn't make me feel good," said Alison.
"I knew I was really happy without it, but I kept going back to it as a coping strategy." She added: "I would keep getting closer, and I'd say to my partner 'I think this is it, I think I've got it this time'.
"But then I'd drink again and I started really hating myself." Facing the prospect of turning 40, Alison was determined to begin a new decade with a fresh start.
She began to train as a life coach and worked hard to leave the bottle behind. After sober spells of more than 40 days, then more than 90 days, Alison has now been sober since October 2021 - and insists she is 'never going back'.
She said: "I think there's always that fear when you stop drinking that you're not going to have any friends, it's going to be boring, people won't like me, what am I going to do with myself. But I've found the opposite, my confidence has grown.
"At the end of the day, alcohol is a depressant, some people react OK with it and some people don't. I didn't, it made me feel really, really low, so taking it out of my system has really helped me feel confident and it's meant that I'm able to do things that I probably wouldn't have done before."
Since stopping drinking, Alison says she is living an 'incredible' life, taking new on new activities from sea swims to sober raves. She still enjoys the company of old friends, while she has made many more.
After benefitting from group and one-to-one coaching, Alison also decided to leave the wine and hospitality industry behind. She now draws on her own experiences to help others, as a qualified alcohol-free coach.
While peer pressure to drink was never an issue for Alison, she still feared what her old friends and clients would think as she left her old world behind. She announced she was sober and launching her new career in a single social media post.
"I just wrote it, posted it, and then went and bought a load of chocolate and didn't look for a bit," said Alison. "You're so scared about what other people are going to think, because it's so socially accepted [to drink] and then almost not socially acceptable not to drink.
"But the amount of support I got on that post, and also private messages I had from people saying 'I'm struggling too' from people I'd been in the wine industry with. All the things I had worried about didn't come true."
Having 'not felt herself' for so many years as she battled with booze, Alison says a 'weight has been lifted'. "For me it's not about whether you're a problem drinker or you're not," she said.
"It's about whether alcohol is taking more from you than it's giving to you, and if it is, then it's time to address it." Alison is now preparing to abseil the Orbit at London's Olympic Park, another activity she believes she wouldn't have taken on before going sober, and she says the freedom she now enjoys without booze is 'massive'.
"I just want to get the message across that actually, it can be a really gorgeous life," Alison added. "You can still go out and still have the same friends, my other half still drinks, you can still have what you've got - but you can add so much more to it."
Find out more about Alison on her website, Facebook and Instagram pages.
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