LIFE BEYOND ALCOHOL –
July 16th, 2025 – When Lauren McQuistin was in the grip of alcoholism, sobriety didn’t only seem impossible – it seemed pointless. Sobriety was something for other people to strive for. People who had lost everything and had something to reclaim: a family, a house, a partner, a career. “I was 19, and no one was depending on me,” says Lauren, now 32. “I never had enough to lose in the first place, so I couldn’t see the point of getting sober.”
On paper, Lauren had plenty going for her: she was a gifted opera singer, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and studying for her Master’s at Yale School of Music. Her future was bright. Inside, though, she was screaming. Growing up “depressed, a little bit weird, and so scared” in the remote town of Stranraer in western Scotland, drinking had been part of her and her friends’ lives since they were 13. But almost as soon as she started, she realised her approach was different. While her mates were getting silly and sloppy, she was aiming for blackout. “People were beginning to distance themselves from me, because the libertine was becoming a liability,” she says.
In a psychiatric ward after Lauren attempted suicide at 19, doctors warned her that she might not live past 25 if she continued drinking in the same vein. Even this didn’t faze her. Her life and sanity were in danger, but she couldn’t see it. She continued drinking for nearly six years. It took several attempts, but with the support of a compassionate university doctor, the 12-step programme, and a close circle of trusted friends, she eventually got sober – and has been ever since. “I was a highly therapised person. I’d heard every theory about what was wrong with me,” she says. “But no one was telling me how to get sober, or how to build a life I didn’t want to run away from.”
One thing she did know was that she wasn’t alone. Research suggests around 45 per cent of UK adults either struggle with addiction themselves or have someone close to them who does – and yet real, practical guidance can feel scarce and inaccessible. It’s into the gap that Lauren wrote No Lost Causes Club: An Honest Guide to Recovery and How to Find Your Way Through It. Warm-hearted, wise, and often very funny, much like her Instagram account @brutalrecovery, where she posts memes and advice to 180,000 followers, the book is part memoir, part practical guide. It’s an intricate account of what it takes to recover, and a deeply compassionate roadmap for anyone who wants to try.
Ringing through its pages is a loud, radical question: who might you become without the thing that once numbed you? The first myth Lauren dismantles is that sobriety demands self-erasure. In losing her “anaesthetic for life”, she feared she might also lose what made her herself: her friends, her creativity, her rebellious streak. On a more basic level, she worried she’d become a crashing bore. And it’s not a baseless fear. Despite a growing wave of sober curiosity, drinking and drugs still weave through much of British social life: from after-work pints and bottomless brunches, to gallery openings and even baby showers. It’s easy to imagine that, without a drink in hand, you’ll be on the outside looking in.
