We Recover Loudly … Stomping Out Stigma One Sweaty Sock At A Time.
By Shell from We Recover Loudly
Shell uses strong language in this new blog, and she makes no apology, so get ready for a blistering take on stigma and recovery.
One of the things I found when I first got sober was a distinct lack of people who looked like me. In fact, if I'm honest, it was one of the things that kept me from sobriety in the first place. I wasn't the stereotype I had in my head. I wasn't an old man on a park bench, bottle of whisky in a paper bag, having lost everything; a true down and out.
Looking back, I can see how much stigma played a role in that thinking. I had such a fixed idea of what an alcoholic was supposed to look like that I couldn't recognise addiction in myself, even when it was staring me in the face. Because if addiction only happens to "those people", then it becomes very easy to explain away your own drinking, convince yourself you're different and put off asking for help. The reality was that I wasn't comparing myself to the reality of addiction; I was comparing myself to a stereotype. When I came into sobriety, I was my own version of rock bottom. Bloated face, thinning hair, dead eyes. I had lost friendships, work and, of course, that all important self-respect. But regardless, I still thought to myself: I can't be an alcoholic. After all, alcoholics don't have pink hair, tattoos and a wicked sense of humour... right?
I remember the first few AA meetings I went to and, again, the differences were all I could see. There were the old timers, round bellied and sleeping through most of the meeting until share time, when they would suddenly wake up and spout chapters of the Big Book verbatim with a wisdom that the great wizards of yore would be jealous of. There were the older women in their M&S finest, hair perfectly coiffed, manning the literature stand like it was Waterstones. The newcomers making cups of sugary tea with shaky hands. The people with families, partners, children and careers.
I just didn't see myself in them.
Now don't get me wrong, these people saved my life and I love them more than anything. They are my family. But I could feel myself doing what I used to do before sobriety and that was dulling myself down to be more palatable. More accepted.
I was sober, but I was still me. I was not suddenly someone who wanted to tone down, line up and conform. It weirdly felt like another rejection.
Social media didn't help much either. There was an image of a sober girl who does yoga, eats vegetables and speaks softly while wearing a lilac pashmina that I just could not relate to, and never would. Men would, of course, immediately become runners, protein obsessed, snorting creatine and drinking coffee like connoisseurs.
Was this all we got sober for? To once again feel like a disappointment because we didn't live up to another standard? I don't want to run. I want to eat biscuits, not wash my hair for three days and sofa rot on a Sunday. I had spent my life feeling guilty for not living up to other people's expectations, for continually failing at the high standards I had set for myself based on what I saw in others, and for yet again not fitting in.
That is why from very early on in my recovery visibility became so important to me.
The world of sobriety has changed a lot in the five years I have been sober, and that's a wonderful thing. But I remember being two years into recovery and really struggling to find my place within it. One of the things I was searching for at the bottom of a glass was connection and community. I got sober and straight away I felt othered in a lot of ways. I didn't lose weight. I didn't join a running club (what are you all running from anyway?!). I didn't discover that underneath the haze of alcoholism I had a secret talent for oil painting and could finally live out my passion. I was sober, but I was also living with chronic illness, which restricted my movement and meant I actually gained weight.
I was definitely happier. Definitely calmer. Definitely more present.
But I still wanted to be able to be a cunt when needed! In fact, if anything, sobriety made me more of a cunt. And by cunt, I mean someone who knows their own worth. Someone who knows their boundaries and isn't afraid to ask for them. Someone who has stopped people pleasing and started taking up the space they deserve.
Around the same time, I was also celebrating a lot of my friends' sobriety milestones. One of the greatest gifts in my recovery has been having friends with a similar amount of sober time to me. There is something incredibly powerful about ringing another sober person and saying, "How was your day 56? Mine was a complete car crash."
So I was constantly sending congratulations gifts, and that is when I realised how limited and one-dimensional the sober gifting market was in this country. To be fair, things have improved in recent years. Companies like Recovery Cartel have brought fresh ideas into the space. But I still couldn't find anything that spoke to the person I was becoming.
Because for me, recovery is rebellion. It's a riot call. A battle cry from the trenches of rock bottom that screams:
I FUCKING MADE IT!!
There is nothing about a packet of lavender bath salts and a meditation candle that says that to me. Recovery is the death of the old and the rising of the new. It is punk. It is metal. It is total obliteration of self and the building of something new from the ruins.
It is not a lilac pashmina and a 5km run.
And it was during one of my trademark ADHD-fuelled chaotic mind-mapping sessions that I put all of that together and realised the answer to my frustrations around finding loudly celebratory gifts for people like me. People who saw getting sober as the most rebellious thing they had ever done. And wanted everyone to know about it.
I feel the need to add a side note here - just because I see recovery as rebellion, a battle cry from the trenches of rock bottom and the most punk thing I have ever done, doesn't mean I am not also completely obsessed with what I call my Sober Wanker Wins.
The beautifully banal. The gloriously ordinary. The deeply mundane little moments that would have made my drinking self roll her eyes so hard they nearly detached from her head.
In fact, this morning I was planting my tomatoes into their forever homes, sipping a glass of homemade ginger kombucha and enjoying the smell of clean laundry flapping in the wind while thinking:
I am so fucking smug right now! And really that is exactly the point. Whether your recovery feels like a battle cry from the trenches of rock bottom or a slightly embarrassing amount of excitement about clean sheets and homegrown tomatoes, it deserves celebrating. I wanted gifts that reflected that. Gifts that felt as loud, proud, rebellious, ridiculous and joyful as recovery itself. All of those feelings, actions and, let's be honest, taglines culminated in me releasing the first batch of 100 Sober Cunt socks last February. I remember my dad saying, "No one will buy something with the C word on it."
Luckily, he wasn't my target audience.
The socks sold out quickly. So quickly that I was already placing a second order just a couple of weeks later. One of the reasons I love the original Sober Cunt socks is the juxtaposition of those two words.
Sober.
Cunt.
Both words are stigmatised. Both are divisive. Both get a reaction from people. There were many times in my life when I would rather have been called a cunt than be called sober. The socks ask people to question themselves as much as those around them: What are you finding more offensive? Sober or the C word?
Never mind the fact that the C word is one of the most ridiculous words in the English language to find offensive. It is describing female genitalia; the giver of life! The fact that word has become one of the strongest insults we have is a fairly blatant sign of patriarchy in action. While this blog is probably not the place for me to start spouting about reclaiming the word cunt from the ashes of disgust to the heights of honour and lauded glory it deserves, there is definitely an element of joy in reclaiming that word in sock form.
One of the reasons I chose socks as the first product is because they can be as subtle or as blatant as you want them to be. You can pull them up and wear them with shorts, daring people around you to ask about them. They become a silent signal to the people around you that you are sober. And sometimes that is all someone needs to see. Someone wearing the word sober. Happy. Smiling. Enjoying their life and their individuality.
I wish I had seen more people like that when I was starting out. I think I would have realised much sooner that recovery was the right place for me after all.
Conversely, one of my favourite ways people wear the socks is secretly under their jeans, hidden just for them, giving them supercharged secret superpowers to take on their day. I love having people message me saying they have worn them to difficult work meetings, court dates, social events where there was drinking, family gatherings or simply on days when their recovery feels fragile and they are scared. The socks give them the superhero power to know that no matter what, they are a cunt and they can do hard things like sobriety.
I launched a website in October 2025 and have started selling things other than socks - hats, bags, jewellery and t-shirts - all designed to celebrate sobriety, whether you're buying for yourself or someone you love. Now that the business is finding its rhythm, I can move into the next phase: collaborating with sober artists, designers and organisations whose work deserves to be seen and celebrated.
Recently I launched a collection with The Sober Butterfly Collection, and with The Sober Boozer, Ben Gibbs. I've also started expanding a range of neurodiversity-celebrating products because, let's be honest, if you're in recovery there's a reasonable chance you're late-diagnosed ADHD, autistic or, like me, lucky enough to have both!
And remember those disappointing letterbox gift boxes I was moaning about earlier? Well, I'm launching my own version later this year in time for Xmas! Socks, a greeting card and a few other fun bits that are perfect for celebrating the people in your life who are doing incredible things. Because they deserve celebrating.
And so do you.
Just like my sobriety, the business is taking time. I'd love to have ten collaborations already launched and hundreds more products available. But one of the greatest gifts recovery has given me is the grace to allow myself to reach my goals in my own time, not in the timeframe my ADHD brain thinks they should happen. If you'd like to follow along, check out the website, use the code STIGMA20 for 20% off your first order and sign up to the mailing list to hear about future launches, collaborations and everything else happening with We Recover Loudly as it continues to grow.
But more importantly, whoever you are in recovery, remember this:
Carrying shame is not what we got better for.
Be smug.
Be proud.
Be a cunt.
Be whatever version of yourself recovery has allowed you to become.
Just make sure you do it loudly.
Because sometimes all it takes is seeing one person living sober, happy and unapologetically themselves to help someone else believe there is a place for them too. I wish I had seen more people like that when I was starting out.
That's why We Recover Loudly exists.
Because when we recover loudly, we stop others dying quietly.
Want to Recover Loudly with Shell?
If Shell’s take on recovery has struck a chord, you can follow the journey and join the growing community of We Recover Loudly here:
Website - We Recover Loudly
Instagram - we recoverloudly
And if you’re thinking of treating yourself or someone you care about, use the code STIGMA20 for 20% of your first order.