Celebrate a Happy Sober Birthday
It’s your Sober Birthday! The anniversary of the day you went clean! But what are you going to do to celebrate? We’ve got some fun ideas. But before you get there, you have to face the fact that you’re sober.
Speaking over at XOJane, Emily McCombs said: “Like every newly sober alcoholic, I didn’t expect to ever have any fun again.” In fact, she needed to change her definition of fun. She says it’s changed to “something more authentic than the pure needle-jab-to-the-hurt rush of chemical oblivion. I have laughed more, and more authentically, in sobriety than I ever did in my decade of drinking. I wouldn’t have believed it when I stumbled into my first meeting, shaky and scared, but I try to tell the new girls who look like I did anyway.You really will have fun again, I swear, being sober isn’t boring at all, you’ll just have to trust me for now.”
College Candy has a list of over 21 things to do on your Sober Birthday. Their top ten includes:
- Go bowling.
- Get a group together and do laser tag.
- Take a trapeze class with friends.
- Take an outdoor hike.
- Go to your favorite restaurant.
- Plan a spa day complete with massage, manicure, and pedicure.
- Have a shopping spree.
- See a Broadway show.
- Take a painting or ceramics class.
- Attend a concert.
Holidappy has their own list too. Their Top Ten includes:
- Take a road trip across the country and back.
- Indulge your inner child and have a good old-fashioned sleepover complete with Ouija boards, junk food, and a stock of scary movies.
- Learn to DJ.
- Take your friends paintballing.
- Set up an obstacle course in a local park and compete against your friends to see who can get through it the quickest.
- Go indoor skydiving.
- Recreate your favorite birthday party from when you were a kid. Think “pin the tail on the donkey,” musical chairs, and piñatas!
- Take the day off (if you can) and do absolutely nothing – don’t even get dressed in real clothes. Sometimes doing nothing is the best something you can do.
- Host a costume party where everyone dresses up as what they always wanted to be when they grew up.
- Go to – or host – a murder mystery dinner.
Demi Lovato recently celebrated her fifth sober birthday. According to Entertainment Tonight, she couldn’t be happier. “Surrendering is the most important thing whenever you’re trying to battle your demons,” Lovato said. “You have to admit that you have a problem first, and then you can overcome them.”
She added, “It feels amazing. All I’ve been doing is focusing on bettering myself. It’s been quite the journey, but it’s well worth it.”
So what else can you do on your sober birthday? Club Soda has this to say about the people you’ll want to surround yourself with. “Who do you want to see and really spend time with? Can a birthday treat be as simple as catching up with an old friend for a coffee? You want to reserve your precious time for people you want to be with, who support you. Don’t feel bad about ditching the rest of YOUR day.” So if you’re planning on throwing a party, maybe just invite people who helped you get clean, whether emotionally or financially, and thank them.
Or throw a mocktail birthday bash!
- Invite all of your close friends and challenge them to create and bring the bestmocktailthey can conceive of.
- Set up stations around your home where each mocktail can live and allow each guest to explain to the party what their mocktail is and how they came up with their recipe.
- Turn up the music, encourage everyone to try all the drinks, and at the end of the night, you will sleep better knowing your friends will get home safely.
There are so many ideas to choose from that it’s good to know you’ll have many more sober birthdays with which to try them all. However, you spend your sober birthday, whether surrounded by good friends or alone with nature, reflect on how lucky, blessed and healthy you are for making the right choices.
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