The Gift of Presence

How Sobriety Opens the Door to Every Opportunity

This bank holiday, I’ve been away, staying with a friend in the countryside. It should’ve been a relaxing break, and in some ways, it still is but my poor dog has come down with a dicky tummy. Not ideal timing. She’s been waking me almost hourly throughout the night, needing to go outside. Each time, I’ve wrapped up in layers, clipped on her lead, and carefully navigated a treacherous set of steep stone steps, before venturing up a cold, pitch-black country lane so she can do what she needs to do. It’s freezing. The stairs are precarious and genuinely dangerous, especially with an anxious dog tugging nervously beside me (my dogs don’t normally do stairs).

At 3 am, as I shivered in the darkness, I found myself thinking - what would this night have looked like if I was still drinking? Honestly? It could’ve gone badly. Very badly.

If I’d been drinking that evening, her desperate cries might not have woken me from my comatose state leading to an accident on my friend’s carpet. Worse, if I had woken in a drunken haze, stumbling down those steep steps in the dark, well it doesn’t take much imagination. A broken bone for me. Injury to her. A night that should have been difficult but manageable could easily have turned into something traumatic and dangerous.

Sobriety means I was there for her. Tired? Sure. Cold? Definitely. But clear-headed, responsive, and safe. I was able to care for her without risking either of us.

It got me thinking about other situations too, like my mum. She lives alone, about 40 minutes away. If she were ever to need me urgently, I know I could get in the car right that second and go to her. No hesitation. No calculations about how much I’ve had to drink. No scrambling to find someone else because I’ve made myself unavailable. I’m simply… available.

And that is one of the most underrated, most beautiful gifts of sobriety: presence.

When you remove alcohol, you remove the fog. You remove the excuses, the delays, the complications. You show up. For your family. For your pets. For your friends. For yourself. You are available - emotionally, physically, practically, in a way that alcohol simply doesn’t allow.

Sobriety doesn’t just hand you clarity and energy. It hands you freedom. The freedom to say “yes” to opportunities, to emergencies, to connection, to responsibility - because you know you’re in control, and you’re here.

And it’s not just about emergencies, it’s about life itself. Being able to respond, to act, to care  without delay, without haze, without a hangover. That is a life I never want to give up.

Sobriety gives you back your time. Your clarity. Your presence. And with that presence comes power, the power to be there when it matters most.