Wellington Get-Together..

Living Sober has just had it’s inaugural annual get-together! A community-led meet up of brave sober warriors in Wellington. A weekend of meals, walks, talks, and togetherness.

I joined the group for a late lunch yesterday at a hotel in the centre of town.

We were given a side area off the main bar – a lovely airy open space filled with mismatched vintage arm chairs & sofas, coffee tables laden with yummy platters of food and mini vases with fresh flowers in them, and sideboards holding plenty of fresh water and jugs of a delicious mocktail mixture served in tall glasses with fresh cherries in them.

We stood around chatting and mingling.. I had so many lovely hugs from people – was desperate for the name tags to arrive so that I could match the ‘real’ person in front of me with the ‘online person’ that I knew so well!

After we’d mingled for a bit we sat around and had a semi-formal session.. @morgan introduced it and said a few words, @prudence and @gilbert read out blog posts they had written,  I said a few words, many of us cried, we had a round-table discussion, @pearl read out a poem she’d written, @marylourocks sang us a song, and @butterfat closed with a lovely few words of her own.

And then .. just before our time was up … the call was made for a group photo to be taken.

So we gathered…..and we smiled….. happy to come together in a tight group…

And then.. because we didn’t realise two people had popped out to the bathroom … we gathered again.. this time for a big WOO HOO!!!

There really aren’t the words to express how it felt being amongst this group of brave, amazing, real, kind, and honest individuals. We are all so different and unique – but yet we are forever united because of our shared experience of getting sober.. and our shared experience of regular interaction here at Living Sober (the best website in the whole goddam universe!).

We will do this again next year – in September in Rotorua – pegged alongside the annual Cutting Edge Addiction Conference (for addiction sector practitioners and consumers).

It will be epic. Be there. It’s worth it. Online interactions are powerful and transformative. But nothing beats face-to-face interactions and a big hug.

Love, Mrs D xxx