Affiliated With None Open To All

Before the lockdown.

Sober Events was established in 2017 by Paul Byrne and Kevin Farrell the concept was to offer people who no longer drank or took drugs a safe place to enjoy a night out safely with both Paul and Kevin being in recovery and with large networks of people in a similar situation the first event took place in July 2017 a boat party along the Thames this event sold out very quickly with over 240 people attending. Word quickly spread and in the next 3 plus years Sober Events has established itself as one of the best and safest sober nights out in the country with events taking place up and down the UK Since then it has gathered a large following on social media with well over 3000 followers across all platforms. We have also incorporated an open approach to mental health as this goes hand in hand with both alcohol and drug related issues.

After the lockdown

As soon as the seriousness of the current situation regarding the Pandemic was clear Sober Events took action very early. Starting of by offering support via our social media platforms and then quickly establishing a Sober Events coming together Zoom meeting 7 nights a week from 10pm onwards we came to the agreement that putting a late evening meeting on was essential under the current situation and since the meeting has opened via Zoom we have 50 plus people attending every evening we have structured it so that the platform is open to all s diverse and inclusive in its format. We have a different array of speakers covering all areas of addiction as well as mental health the speaker normally speaks for around 20/25 minutes and then there is sharing back by people attending the meeting.

We also put on DJ’s throughout the day on our social media platforms which has proved to be another source of connection that has become essential to a lot of people while we experience this lockdown together.

We at Sober Events have an ethos that the opposite of isolation is connection and we have managed to bring people together by offering a safe platform for people to come and engage at many different levels.