On September 12, 2026, I made it to 6 years sober on my 35th birthday. If you had asked me back then if I knew what was going to happen as a result of giving up alcohol, I would have said that I knew what I desired, which was transformation, healing, and liberation. But everything that has unfolded has been way past what I could have imagined for myself. So, in honor of this milestone, I thought I would share what has unfolded.
The Intention Was For 1 Year
At 29 years old, when I gave up alcohol, the intention was to do it for 1 year. I was pretty convinced that I would go back to drinking after the year was up. But halfway through my first year of sobriety, I fell in love with it.
It’s interesting how sometimes we go into something with an idea of how it will go, but it pans out differently. In fact, this has been a constant theme and lesson I’ve been encountering these past several years.
If you had told the 29-year-old version of me that I was going to be sober for 6 years, I think I would have giggled.
So why did I continue my sobriety?
Well, like I said, I fell in love with it.
Sobriety is an opportunity to fully experience life as it is, and I love it.
Sobriety is everything I imagined and much more.
Sobriety is beautiful, magical, and powerful.
The fact that I intended to give up alcohol for 1 year and, 6 years later, I am still sober is incredible. I had no idea that giving up alcohol for one year would lead me to envision my life without it. When I deeply reflect on this part of my sobriety journey, I am reminded of why it’s important to give up what no longer serves you and step into the unknown because you just don’t know what you may find. And what you find might be way better than what you could have imagined for yourself.
Being Diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
My whole life, I’ve struggled with anxiety. In my 20s, a therapist once told me that I had Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
But when I made it to a year of sobriety, I think my anxiety manifested in a different way. I began to experience a thought that I felt would never go away. This became like an irrational fear that brought me to tears. I began to do some research and came across information suggesting that what I was experiencing could possibly be GAD and/or OCD. Eventually I met with an OCD therapist and was diagnosed with OCD.
I think in many ways, alcohol was suppressing my OCD. After my first round of treatment, I found relief. However, my OCD latched onto other things, which led me to go back to therapy a few more times.
Since then, I can say I am definitely in a better place when it comes to my mental health. This does not mean I don’t experience anxiety or OCD-related symptoms. What it means is that I have new perspectives and tools to navigate my mental health.
While it may be scary to know that when you give up alcohol, things may come to the surface, I view it as an opportunity to properly deal with those things that were underneath. It’s not easy to face the things we were either consciously or subconsciously suppressing, but I think it’s worth it because, in doing so, we get to learn new perspectives and tools to begin the healing process.
Questioning My Career & Leaving It
In March of 2020, I was in my second year of working as a school counselor at the first school that hired me after I graduated with my master’s degree. When the school asked staff to indicate whether we planned to return the following academic year, I informed them that I would not be returning. Interestingly, a couple of weeks after I informed them in early March 2020, the pandemic hit, and all schools went virtual. This was something no one could have anticipated. However, I finished out the school year and officially left that summer because I was unhappy with the work environment, although I was still passionate about helping students.
During the spring and summer of 2020, I decided that I was going to give up alcohol for one year, starting on my 29th birthday in September, and also start a blog to document and share my journey openly.
During this time, as I searched for a new school counseling role, I received a job offer but ended up losing it after asking for more time to make my decision because I was interested in another opportunity at a different school. Funny enough, the school I was more interested in did not offer me the role. So, by the time fall 2020 came around, I was ultimately left with no job.
In September 2020, I still launched my blog and announced that I was going to give up alcohol for one year and share my journey openly.
It was during my first year of sobriety and the years that followed that I began to question my career, identity, and purpose. I also began to reconnect with my big dreams and goals. During this time, I started to discover new parts of myself, including my interest in writing and my creativity as a whole.
I found myself thinking about leaving school counseling to pursue the dreams, goals, and ideas I was having. But I felt torn. I didn’t feel that I could make the decision to leave school counseling because I didn’t think I had enough experience to know whether it was no longer for me, given that I only had 2 years of school counseling experience at that point.
After a little over a year of being unemployed, which was not planned, I resumed my job search in 2021 and landed a school counseling role in the fall of that year. This is where all the realizations began to happen. In this second school counseling position and every role I held afterward, I kept encountering challenges and things I did not like in one way or another. Each challenge I encountered in the positions I held was yet another realization that school counseling was not for me. I started to become frustrated, disappointed, and overwhelmed to the point of tears.
My feelings of frustration, disappointment, and overwhelm stemmed from the disconnect between what I learned in graduate school and what was expected of me on the job. Moreover, I began to realize that I no longer wanted to work with kids, given the challenging behaviors I had to deal with.
After five years of working as a school counselor, I decided to leave the field in December 2025. The way my school counseling career ended was not on my terms, as I was pushed out of the last school I worked at. However, I chose to leave the field as a whole by deciding not to apply for another school counseling role.
Throughout those five years, even while working as a school counselor, I continued to share my journey openly online, along with my sobriety milestones. Looking back, when I gave up alcohol in 2020, I had no clue that I would end up questioning my career, identity, and purpose. But now, I can see why things unfolded the way they did. There has always been a part of me that felt things were meant to happen this way so that I could rediscover and reconnect with my other dreams and goals, as well as discover a new part of myself through creativity. I also feel that what happened with my career was meant to happen so that I could learn all the lessons I did along the way.
Discovering My Creativity
Creativity is something I used to think other people had, but not me. Once I gave up alcohol and started sharing my sobriety journey online, writing blog posts, and creating quotes, reels, and videos, I began to discover my own creativity, and I loved it.
This is yet another thing I could not have imagined for myself. As I look back on the process of putting my blog together, writing blog posts, and creating content, I started to realize that it was all creativity.
I also returned to dance and eventually began creating my own choreography. Additionally, I have a journal filled with poems and short pieces of writing that come from the things I’ve been navigating and experiencing in my life.
When I deeply reflect on this, I always come back to the idea that when you give up what no longer serves you, you open up space and possibilities for new gifts to come into your life. Alcohol was no longer serving me, and because I gave it up, I discovered the gift of my own creativity. That has been truly magical and beautiful.
Looking Back On What Has Unfolded
If you had told me when I was 29 years old that I was going to make it to six years sober, be diagnosed with OCD, question my career and eventually leave it, and discover my creativity, I think my jaw would have dropped, and I would have been like, “WHAT?!”
Remember how, in the beginning, I mentioned that I wanted transformation, healing, and liberation? In many ways, I’ve gotten that… it just happened in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
I’ve experienced transformation because the old me used to drink heavily, while the new me is happily sober.
Although, I don’t think I am “healed and liberated” because it’s natural and normal to experience both positive and negative thoughts and feelings. However, I have found moments of relief and improvement when it comes to my OCD and anxiety (though it’s never perfect). The old me used to spiral and judge myself for the thoughts I had, while the new me has new perspectives and tools to navigate my mental health.
Old Anina was convinced she had picked the right career and was so passionate about it, while new Anina has left that career and is discovering a new path for herself.
Old Anina used to think other people were creative, while new Anina has discovered her own creativity.
I am so thankful for everything that has unfolded as a result of giving up alcohol and becoming sober.
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Resources:
NOCD – where I got my OCD diagnosis and ERP treatment.