I broke my sobriety on a yacht in St Tropez after three years sober

Turns out all I needed was a martini and an orgasm

Hi, me again. Sorry I’ve been a little AWOL. I was shaking my ass on a yacht in St Tropez. And, you know, as a writer, it’s my duty to live a life worth writing about. And so that’s what I’ve been doing. Really, really living.

I think I grew up too fast.

I’ve been sober for over three years. And it was great at first. I found peace, and who I could be when I wasn’t trying to be the entertainer of every room. But then I found I’d moved so far the other direction that I stopped feeling like myself at all. We all know I only deal in extremes.

I was fine with no longer being described as “fun”, but I was completely disconnected. So tightly wound. It would take a lot to keep my energy up. I found myself all too quiet. Too stoic.

Life was a corset laced so tightly I could barely breathe.

I’d put all of this pressure on myself to be so put together all the time so I could remain far far away from the party girl, the messy girl, the stupid girl who lost herself over mediocre men a million times.

(Still managed to ace the losing myself over a mediocre man thing. But if you’ve been here for a while, you’re well aware of that.)

And it’s exhausting. In the last two years, I feel like I’ve aged a decade. I thought I was finding myself and stepping into womanhood but I’d lost myself in so many ways, along with the last year of my twenties.

I spent so long trying not to be the girl I used to be that I accidentally became someone I didn’t recognise.

Well… this summer, I finally regained my lost youth.

“GIRL. ENOUGH OF THIS GRANDMA SHIT NOW,” My best friend demanded. “You’re so fucking young. Put on a little dress, go outside, and fucking live.”

And she was right. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life looting salt shakers from restaurants every time I needed to feel a thrill.

So the objective was simple.

First of all, the sensible wardrobe can fuck off. I have absolutely zero reason to be dressing like it’s business hours.

Bitch don’t even have a real job. My place of work is the entire world.

And then get your ass outside and do some hot girl shit.

So I did. Back outside she goes.

Bar, concert, vacation, dinner, concert, random party, steal the mic at a random party, club, kiss a boy at club, date, date, vacation, wedding (not mine).

Met a guy who fucked like a fairy on acid and he was fun for a few weeks. Got the ick. Next?

Reconnected with an old lover. Favourite one. Went on a baecation… but more on that later.

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THEN

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

4:53 pm

I’m in St Tropez. I’ve been non stop. Got back from German baecation with BB, so tired. Had the best fucking time. God. Then had to pack for St Tropez and get back on another flight the next morning. More on Germany later.

I’m at a beach club. We were on the yacht all day today. I was barely functioning when we arrived at the villa yesterday. Same thing today. It’s been such a long day today. I’m exhausted. Barely slept last night. It’s Cart’s birthday today. I’m mute. Don’t know what to say to anyone. I remember when I used to be fuckin fun?!

2:10 am

First time I’ve been drunk in three years?! Elite. Would recommend. I’ve been emotionally constipated for the longest time. Turns out all I needed was a drink, and to get my back blown out by my German lover?! Who knew!

You did, bitch. You knew.

I’ve been my doctor’s guinea pig, testing out concoctions of prescription pills for the longest time knowing that the majority of my problems could be fixed with a pack of cigarettes, a love affair, a stiff drink, and a good fucking shag.

NOW

It had been this way for almost two years. It started halfway through my last relationship. Going to bed early, being tired and withdrawn. I’ve always had my bouts of melancholia but not like this. It was like someone turned my energy down to the lowest setting and removed the knob. That became my baseline. A few months before the end of the relationship, I had a few emergency visits to the doctor because my mental health felt like it was collapsing in on itself.

I was mute where I used to be loud. Dull where I used to be bright. And shy where I used to be outspoken.

What I’m hearing, darling, is that none of this was you at all. You were just with an energy-sucking man-baby.

Regardless of the inciting incident or the cause, I just kind of thought that was my life now. Doctors and pills. Pills and doctors.

I frequent my local pharmacy so often I’m now friends with the pharmacist. We have inside jokes. He knows my name and address by heart, and I get free lollipops- probably because he sees the list of medications and thinks bless her.

He also fancies the pants off me.

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THEN

Friday, 31 July 2026

7:15 pm

In the air. On the flight back to London. St Tropez was a fever dream. Yachts and boys and clubs and booze. Oh yes. Booze. I got drunk for the first time in three fucking years. I decided to go balls to the wall on Cart’s birthday.

So we were at Indie Beach and I’m just itching to join in with everyone. I was all quiet and low energy. Not because I wasn’t having fun, but because I get like that a lot now. It started when I was with Mr Man. I’d just check out and sit there in silence while everyone was talking and having fun. I thought it was because I was getting sick and tired of him and his mates but it carried on even when I did want to join in.

It’s like I don’t know what to say. Or I can’t find the energy to say it. Or I’m policing myself. I don’t even know. I have fun every now and then, but most of the time it’s like I don’t know how to enjoy myself. Like I’ve forgotten how to be social. And all of a sudden, I’m the quiet one. I bet people think I’m a stuck up little cunt. In reality, I’m bored of myself and just don’t really know what to say anymore.

Cat got your tongue, babe?

So I took a gulp of Cartia’s aperol. And then another. And as the shots came, I started taking a sip of those too. Then a whole one. And then… oh fuck it, I’m drinking tonight!

And the crowd goes willlddddddddddddddd.

And just like that, I’m on the tables, kissing girls, and plucking out hot twenty-four-year-old model boys from the crowd to take back to the boat with us.

That’s my girl.

Back on the boat I didn’t feel weird. Didn’t feel super crazy drunk, or falling all over the place. I just felt like I could be fun and happy and full of energy. I did do a tactical vomit at one point but I wasn’t too drunk. My body was just rather overwhelmed. I also get seasick. Very seasick.

One by one, the team tapped out. Carti stayed on the boat and then S and I were the last ones standing, in the kitchen passing traumas between us back at the house. We drank wine on the roof. By that point, I couldn’t actually stomach any more wine.

We went to bed, passed out. I woke absolutely ravenous and with a monster hangover. We all took the tender back to the yacht and I threw up after about five minutes of being back on deck. I spent the entire day feeling sorry for myself with my headache, eating whatever I could get my paws on. Still, I managed to make it out to dinner in town at a place called Cherry, where I stuffed my face some more. Fuck loads of pasta. Then the desserts came. Well… I’ve got a fucking sweet tooth so I’m not going to not, am I.

There are ten desserts on this table right now and I need to taste all of them immediately.

I was feeling so very full and sick after. We went back to get changed before going to the club, and I knew I’d probably not make it back out. I didn’t. My stomach was so painful.

They went to Pablo and I threw up. And I threw up and I threw up and I threw up some more. I hadn’t drunk any alcohol or anything that day. I didn’t want to. This was all the effects of the night before and all of the food I’d eaten. I’d eaten more in a day than I’d usually eat in a week. No, seriously. I couldn’t find the end of my stomach. I backed four Kinder Buenos. FOUR!

You fat cunt.

My stomach was so upset. So full. I woke up yesterday feeling just as bad and looking even worse than the hangover day before. A two-day hangover! Well… I’m scared straight. Won’t be making a habit of this. Did I enjoy it? Fuck yes. I really really did. Do I regret it? Not in the fucking slightest. I had the best time with my friends and I had the energy to do that. Finally.

Will I be repeating this? Maybe. But I’m not in a rush.

I didn’t wake up feral and chaotic and desperate for more. I woke up with a fucking headache. Which I’ve been waking up with chronically for however many months anyway.

The hangover was intense though, I must say. God.

NOW

The thing is, that was the first time I’d been drunk in over three years, yes. But it wasn’t the first drink I’ve had in recent weeks. Sometime after the three-year anniversary of my sobriety in April, things started to shift.

I’ve been dabbling with reintroducing alcohol in my life for a while. It started with just a sip of a friend’s fun cocktail or wine if it was a nice bottle, just to taste it. I could have one sip and leave the rest easily. Then I went out to dinner with a friend. It was an event for a gin brand and they were serving martinis.

I fucking love a gin martini.

They handed me one and I took one sip and slid it over to her. And then I went in for another. Then we had a smoke and I had a gulp. I fucking missed martinis. God, that’s good. I left the rest.

After dinner, I went home and mixed myself a whole martini- iced glass, Papa Salt gin, vermouth, olive- and I enjoyed it with a cigarette on my balcony before FaceTime fucking a lover and going to sleep. Then I woke up and didn’t think about it again.

Because I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drug addict. I never was. I was a party girl that went too far and I decided one day that too far was enough.

So I stopped. Just like that. No detox, no rehab, no AA.

I shifted my lifestyle, my mindset, my people. And then three years of sobriety crept up on me and I found myself being hindered by the very thing that once set me free.

I’d always said that I’d end up in a crack den or something if I ever drank again because I’d be so riddled with shame and guilt that I’d come completely undone. I felt I had to tell myself that extreme story to keep myself on track. I thought I only had two options: sober and right or unsober and unravelled.

But it’s not true. I can find balance. I have found balance.

I took my time when considering drinking again, I eased myself in, I thought about it methodically and meticulously and I came to the conclusion with clarity.

And so why would I be ashamed of myself? I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m proud. I’m excited. I’m liberated knowing I can live life without obsession.

Obsession with perfectionism. Obsession with control. Obsession with fucking everything but my own wellbeing.

I became so obsessed with not becoming the old version of myself that control became its own form of self-destruction.

I’d be literally fighting for my life, and someone would say, “Well, at least you’re still sober.”

Bitch, the fuck? I’ve not even thought about drinking or drugs. Because I’m not addicted to substances. I’m addicted to bummy loser men with Peter Pan syndrome and a severe lack of basic empathy. Hellllllooooooooo.

I didn’t want them to think I’d gone off the rails. But I was going off the rails. Quietly and privately suffocating under the weight of my own expectations.

Sobriety had become my entire personality. Like it was my only defining characteristic.

“Blithe’s sober!” people would say as they introduced me.

And people would congratulate me and tell me how strong I am and how they could never do it.

And I’m there thinking… yeah, it’s not actually that hard for me. This conversation, however, is excruciating. Fuck off.

I’ve already proven myself to myself. I was sober for three years and I didn’t fuck up once. Not one time. That’s enough. I survived the most emotionally brutal year of my life without so much as a slip up. I think I can survive a fucking martini. Christ.

I’ve spent enough time praying to a god I don’t believe in to give me the strength. And even after I’d healed, I found no peace in serenity.

So, as Georgina Sparks once said, you can tell Jesus that the bitch is back.

Hide your sons, hide your fathers. And hide your girlfriends too because I’ll show her a good time just to remind her men ain’t shit. But I promise you, you don’t have to hide the key to your liquor cabinet.

I always said that the only time I’d have a drink again would be when I’m cracking a bottle of champagne on the rear of my own yacht. Turns out someone else’s yacht was just fine.

Thoughts, prayers, and delectable pussy.
See you next time in the confessional.

Blithe x

…And since I’m going balls to the wall now, I suggest doing the latter. It’s about to get good.