SoberTides

06/08/2026

I lost my toolbox. Not misplaced it, not lent it to someone and forgotten who. It fell off the back of my ute while I was driving home, bounced across the road and was gone inside six minutes! Twenty kilos of tools I had been collecting and using for forty years, including specialist tools I had made myself for maintaining my own aircraft. Gone. Just like that. What followed was a bunch of emotions I didn't expect..

I lost my toolbox last week. Not misplaced it, not lent it to someone and forgotten who. It fell off the back of my ute while I was driving home, bounced across the road and was gone inside six minutes! Twenty kilos of tools I had been collecting and using for forty years, including specialist tools...

06/07/2026

He held the whiskey a long time before he drank it. Not because he wanted it but because saying no felt like disrespect.

That single belief, never once questioned, is doing more damage than the drink itself. Read the full story here.

He held the whiskey a long time before he drank it.It was a quiet night in a friend's lounge room, no occasion to speak of, and the friend had poured two glasses without asking. He wasn't thirsty. He just didn't want to be the one who said no.He told me about it weeks later, still turning it over. "...

02/07/2026

I spent a long time asking myself whether I had a problem with alcohol.

Not out loud but in my head. It usually started in that window between waking up and getting out of bed, then in the shower, at my desk over coffee, on the drive home.

I was good at thinking things through, solving problems. I’d built a career on it. So I thought this through, thoroughly and continuously.

I solved precisely: nothing.

That was the loop.

It sounds like this. You drink too much but plenty of people drink too much. You use it to relax and unwind but next day you feel more wound up than ever. You’ve cut back before when you needed to, so you could do it again. But you haven’t, not in any way that looked like success. So you go back to the question.

Is it a problem, or isn’t it?

Read More here:

I spent a long time asking myself whether I had a problem with alcohol. Not out loud but in my head. It usually started in that window between waking up and getting out of bed, then in the shower, at my desk over coffee, on the drive home.I was good at thinking things through, solving problems. I’...

20/06/2026

What Happens to Your Body When You Stop Drinking?

Nobody tells you about the Blue Wrens.

They tell you about the liver. They tell you about blood pressure and sleep cycles and the number of calories you are no longer consuming. How the mind will become clearer. All of that is true and all of it matters.
But the thing that actually stopped me one afternoon, about three months after I stopped drinking, was a pair of tiny blue wrens flitting about in our garden. I stood there watching them, genuinely watching them, as they moved through the garden like tiny raptors seeking out the bugs. Surrounded by soft afternoon light through the leaves and the scent of flowers, gum trees and damp undergrowth in the fresh air. Taking it all in.

Read more here:

Nobody tells you about the blue wrens. They tell you about the liver. They tell you about blood pressure and sleep cycles and the number of calories you are no longer consuming. How the mind will become clearer. All of that is true and all of it matters. But the thing that actually stopped me one af...

16/06/2026

How Long Until I Feel Better After Stopping Alcohol?

Its a common question that we ask ourselves, usually when considering or reconsidering a break from alcohol.

Not just "should I stop drinking" or "do I have a problem" but the quiet, practical question underneath all of that: if I do this,

"When does it actually get better?"

Most men asking that question have already had a go at stopping. Maybe more than once. They went back to drinking in the first week or they made it to the third week and restarted then. The reason is almost always the same. They did not know what they were looking at. The first week feels harder than expected and they conclude something is wrong. The third week feels better than expected and they conclude they are done.

Both of those readings are wrong and both lead back to drinking... Read more below:

It is one of the most common questions a man can ask himself when considering the role of alcohol in his life.Not just "should I stop drinking" or "do I have a problem" but the quiet, practical question underneath all of that: if I do this, "When does it actually get better?"Most men asking that que...

08/06/2026

Perhaps you've read the This Naked Mind book. Maybe you've done a course. You understand the ideas, the way alcohol was sold to you, the way the subconscious beliefs were built up over years.
It all makes sense. Logically, you're there.

And yet.

Emotionally, the thoughts... How will I handle this without drinking? What will people think? Will I lose friends and associates if I don't drink?..

Tony Richardson Certified This Naked Mind coach. The only male TNM coach in Australia working with men over 40 still stuck in the gap between knowing and .

31/05/2026

There is a conversation most men in their late 40s, 50s are not having. Not with their doctor, their partner, their mates and certainly not with themselves.

If they did it would sound like this: “I don’t know, something feels different. My energy seems lower than it used to be. My body is getting flabby despite not eating that differently. My motivation comes and goes. Sleep is not what it was. And intimacy, what intimacy?”

Full article:

There is a conversation most men in their late 40s, 50s are not having. Not with their doctor, not with their partner, not with their mates and certainly not with themselves.If it did it would sound like this: “I don’t know, something feels different. My energy seems lower than it used to be. My...

24/05/2026

Why Do I Drink Even When I Don’t Want To?

You started the day with a clear intention. Not drinking tonight and you meant it. By mid-morning it still felt on track. By lunch, manageable. Then five o’clock arrives and you’re cooked..! You pack up, amble to the car and somewhere on the drive home you pass the friendly drive-through. The one you’ve pulled into more times than you remember. Oh yeah, today is a hard no. But this night, a small voice surfaces. A drink would be good...

You started the day with a clear intention. Not drinking tonight and you meant it. By mid-morning it still felt on track. By lunch, manageable. Then five o’clock arrives and with it, the stress of a day that took more energy than you felt you had. You pack up, amble to the car and somewhere on the...

04/05/2026

New Sobertides blog post.

Why is it that once the drinking starts, the intention stops:

"I'll just have one or two" "I'll be home at 6pm".. promises forgotten, and time becomes inconsequential...

There's a recurrent theme I come back to in my coaching work. It describes something so precisely that most men stop for a moment and will recognise it instantly. Not because it's confronting but because it's accurate.You might know it too. The f*ck it switch.Most men I work with know this moment in...

01/05/2026

In a nutshell..