Irish-American woman’s journey to sobriety began in Northern Ireland, ‘taking it one day at a time’

An Irish-American woman who began her sobriety journey while living in Northern Ireland has shared her story to help others.

Melissa Kelly was born in Philadelphia to Irish parents who met while living in the United States. She has spent much of her life moving back and forth between the United States and Ireland, including her years in Belfast, and currently resides in County Waterford.

As she began her sobriety journey, Melissa documented her experience on Instagram and was soon inundated with messages from other Belfast residents going through the same experience, and once or twice a month. We decided to meet.

After relocating to County Waterford, this became Sober Girls Ireland and has now grown to Sober Social Ireland. This is a community for sober or sober and curious people living in Ireland.

Melissa first started drinking towards the end of high school, and recalled regularly binge drinking with friends while studying for a bachelor’s degree in psychology in Philadelphia.

Having experienced drinking cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, she said drinking made her feel good and helped her find her identity. However, after a few years, she soon began to experience anxiety after binge drinking.

She said: “I moved around a lot, so I always had a hard time feeling like I belonged anywhere. I had a lot of voices in my head telling me I was different. When I was in America, I felt like I was weird. I was an Irish woman. And when I was in Ireland, I was the weird American girl.

“When I started drinking towards the end of high school, it felt great, the voices in the back of my head went away, I felt a little more comfortable socializing, and I instantly liked that feeling.

“When I was in my early 20s, my drinking was pretty normal. I studied psychology in college in Philadelphia and went out a lot. During college, I worked in restaurants and bars, so I I was drinking and going out a lot afterwards.” There’s a lot of problem drinking in the industry, and I think I picked up some bad habits here and there.

“After I finished undergrad that year, I was really struggling. I was also struggling health-wise. After a weekend of binge drinking, that’s where my anxiety started. Just getting back to baseline. I felt like it would take three or four days.”It’s very different from social anxiety.

“That was in 2017, when I first started thinking that alcohol might be a problem for me. But since I wasn’t drinking every day, I didn’t think it was that much of a problem. Some… I experimented with taking breaks, and in the summer I noticed that my anxiety went away within a day or two and I felt much better, but I continued drinking for the next few years.”

After completing her master’s degree at Colymerick University, Melissa moved to Belfast to complete her PhD at Queen’s University from 2019 to 2021. But during this time, she said, Melissa felt like she was living a “double life.”

While in Northern Ireland, she began to further evaluate her relationship with alcohol and finally got sober in 2020.

Melissa said: “I had a prestigious position as a Ph.D. with lots of responsibilities and impostor syndrome, but I had no way to deal with the stress, so I ended up binge drinking on the weekends and killing friends. I was partying with them. I was in this state.” There was a vague period where I tried to take 30 days off many times, and the fact that I couldn’t even take a month off was really scary.

“I didn’t just decide to get sober, that was it. It was probably one of the most difficult times. You start to lose confidence in yourself and I found that very difficult.

“When I got sober in May 2020, it was six weeks into the pandemic. I took a breather, put some time and energy into sobriety, and really gave it my all. I never thought I’d try to get sober for good. I had to take a 30-day break, but during lockdown I strengthened my resolve by walking every day and listening to other people’s stories on podcasts.

“My anxiety completely went away, I was able to focus more on work, and I felt like I had a lot more energy. I was so proud of myself. After about a month, my appetite went away.”

After completing her PhD, Melissa took a coaching course and started her own business as a one-on-one coach for people who wanted to change their relationship with alcohol. During this time, she began documenting her sobriety journey.

“As we did that, we started getting messages from people in Belfast asking to meet up for coffee, and we ended up forming a small group.

“We used to meet once or twice a month to go for a walk or go for coffee, and it was great to meet people who were going through similar things. Conversations were rarely about alcohol, but about other fun things that we wanted to introduce into our lives.”

Melissa and her partner moved to County Waterford in March 2022 and started Sober Girls Ireland, now known as Sober Social Ireland.

Furthermore, she added: “I started it because I wanted to make friends and recreate what I did in Belfast. It continued to grow as I posted more and now Sober Social is bigger than I ever imagined.” ”

Reflecting on her four years of sobriety, Melissa offered advice to those taking part in Dry January. she said: “Take it one day at a time. You don’t have to quit forever. You can just say, ‘I’m not going to help you right now, so I’m going to take a break and see what happens.'”

“Go back and remember why you decided to take this break. You’ll probably have moments when you feel like drinking or find it hard to say no. And if you do this and get back on track. There’s an underlying reason.” That’s very helpful. ”

Find out more about Sober Social Ireland here.

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