Drinking alcohol daily was my norm… but then my trust and jealousy issues spiralled out of control, says TRACEY COX – here’s five reasons why ditching booze saved me

Ask a woman why she’s stopped drinking, and she’ll probably say something about improving her sleep, skin or weight.

What she’s less likely to say is that she’s doing it because all her relationships fail and she’s not sure of the one she’s in either.

Fact: Stopping or drastically reducing how much you drink is one of the most efficient ways to fix nearly all relationship issues.

Sobriety has become the relationship therapist millions of women never knew they needed.

Me included.

UK sex and relationships expert Tracey Cox (pictured) has revealed that the sobriety movement isn’t just motivated by physial wellness

This one’s personal

I grew up in an age when drinking daily was the norm. As a journalist in my 20s in Australia, drinking lots was just something you did. Later, as an author and TV presenter living in the UK, it was the same.

No-one questioned the effects if might be having on our personal lives – certainly not me.

Never mind that it led to my trust and jealousy issues becoming completely out of control. Never mind that I’d wake up not remembering what the hell I’d said the night before or what the inevitable argument was about. Never mind that it cost me a lot of relationships that were promising.

It took alcohol related health problems to finally get me to cut down drastically on drinking – and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done.

Everything in my life improved – but most significantly my relationships. I had better judgement when choosing partners. The constant arguments that were a hallmark of all my love affairs disappeared. My jealousy problems were miraculously contained. Life was better in every single way.

I’m so happy that young women are having their eyes opened to what my generation grew up believing…

The wine ‘o’clock myth

For decades, women have been sold the appealing idea that wine is self-care. Those ‘mummy needs wine’ T-shirts and ‘rose all day’ Instagram posts hark from my generation. The message? A drink ‘takes the edge off’ and makes everything easier.

What no-one realised back then was this: taking the edge off isn’t a good thing.

Alcohol doesn’t just dull pain, it dulls perception. You can’t think clearly after even two glasses of wine. It makes mediocre relationships seem better than they are and unacceptable behaviour seem OK.

Alcohol sets your tolerance levels too high

Jess, 38, stopped drinking in January because she was fed up of waking up at 3am feeling anxious.

‘That stopped within weeks. What I didn’t expect was suddenly being able to see what was going on in my relationship. My boyfriend had always made comments about my cooking, the clothes I wore, said nasty things about my friends. I’d noticed but never thought too much about it.’

Sober, Jess didn’t forget. Instead, she started to write them all down.

‘I showed him the long list, and he told me I was being oversensitive because I wasn’t drinking. I was ‘no fun anymore’. I ended the relationship a month later.’

Jess’s story is common: lots of women stop drinking for health reasons and end up confronting relationship issues they’d been quietly anaesthetising.

‘I stopped drinking and realised my husband was totally wrong for me’

Katie, 44, was married for six years when she stopped drinking after a health scare.

‘I wouldn’t say I was unhappy. I’d convinced myself we were like every other long-term couple and gritting our teeth to get through stuff.

‘It was only after we split that I realised just how off the relationship was – and that friends had noticed.

‘I thought it was me being too anxious and needy. Sober, I saw it differently.

‘I realised my husband made all the decisions. He talked over me constantly, undermined me in front of friends and never understood if I got upset.

‘The drinking hadn’t caused any of that, but it had kept me thinking I was to blame for most of it.

‘My husband hated it when I stopped drinking: I think he knew I wasn’t going to be as easy to control. He was right.

‘Women are socialised to smooth things over and not make a fuss.

‘To prioritise our partner’s comfort over our own. I stopped doing that. I drank to make the evening seem more pleasant.

‘Sober, I realised it made sense to remove the person making it unpleasant.’

Why alcohol makes gaslighting easier

Gaslighting – when someone manipulates you to question your own judgement – is hard to identify when it’s been happening to you for a while.

Add alcohol to the mix and you have the perfect recipe for reality to really become blurred.

Drinking too much impairs our ability to both encode and form memories. That means when someone says, ‘That didn’t happen’ or ‘That’s not what you/I said’, you can’t trust your own recollection.

Sober, it’s a different story. You remember what everyone said and what happened. You trust yourself and are much less likely to be manipulated.

Even good relationships look different

Drink less and you’ll argue less.

This is true, even if only one of you cuts down. One person thinking logically and rationally is better than nothing: a fact backed up by a 2023 study.

This is why people fight when drinking: alcohol lowers inhibitions and raises emotional reactivity. A slightly irritating comment at 9pm is often ignored or brushed off when sober. Three glasses of wine in, it can escalate into something that takes days to recover from.

Sober couples argue more efficiently. They stay on point; are less likely to say something they regret and less likely to storm out.

Alcohol might not be the cause of your problems, but it most definitely makes them worse.

A lot happens when the wine goes away – and it’s not just better sleep, better skin and better health.

What women often find is a relationship that doesn’t deserve them.

If you think drinking is having a negative impact on your life, get online help at ‘We are with you’, ‘Drinkaware’ and ‘SMART Recovery UK’. Or contact your GP or NHS Alcohol Support Services.

THE DRAMATIC RISE OF ‘SOBER CURIOUS’ WOMEN

Increasing numbers of women in their twenties through to their 50s are rethinking their relationship with alcohol.

Middle-aged women (55-64) are still the biggest drinkers with 83 per cent saying they’d drunk alcohol in the previous year. But interest in sobriety is surging.

In 2024, nine in ten UK drinkers were actively trying to moderate their drinking in some way. One in five women aged 40-65 are now actively concerned about drinking at levels that would harm their health.

Many women say they’re motivated by more than physical wellbeing. Studies show women who drink less have greater emotional clarity, improved mental health and a clearer perspective on their relationships. Alcohol plays a role in 50 per cent of domestic violence cases in the UK.

Think your relationship might benefit from drinking less?

Ask yes to any of these questions and the answer might well be yes.