I gave up drinking three years ago – this is what you need to know before you do too

At my local pub for lunch the other day I requested a bottle of my favourite alcohol-free beer, Lucky Saint. open image in gallery Millie Gooch founded the Sober Girl Society, which has 203,000 members It’s a kind of mental kung-fu of anxious, unkind, and often quite shame-inducing thinking that consumes your waking hours – if you let it. open image in gallery Laura and Camille Vidal of mindful drinking platform La Maison Wellness The impulse to build a new, supportive sober community is where Ruby Warrington’s Sober Curious movement has sprung from, and it’s why Millie Gooch’s Sober Girl Society has a 203,000 strong club of young women who get together to re-learn how to go out sober. “My friends couldn’t help, and I quickly realised I needed sober friends.” The outcome was her Instagram account @sobergirlsociety, which has since become a book and a social movement with regular meet-ups to learn to tackle brunch without booze, sober clubbing and burlesque lessons to build sexual confidence. “I started it purely as a social impact business, I wanted to offer people behaviour change techniques,” she explains, “but weirdly, I’ve ended up becoming the biggest seller of alcohol-free drinks in the UK.