New Zealand woman describes life as a 'high-functioning' drinker and path to sobriety

Lauree Arnold spent decades in male-dominated workplaces with a reputation as a high-functioning drinker, her life narrated by nights that blurred into mornings and a work persona that hid a growing reliance on alcohol. The turning point came in November 2022 after a Guns N’ Roses concert, when she woke with a racing heart and a fear she might die. Looking at her husband, she said the words that would redefine her life: I’m done. From that moment, she began a sober chapter built on a simple, powerful premise: no hangover, no dread, no shame, just freedom. "No hangover. No dread. No shame. Just freedom," she would later describe the feeling of a first sober Christmas as a turning point that opened doors she hadn’t imagined could exist without alcohol.

Arnold’s journey traces back to childhood in New Zealand, where she grew up the only child of a single mother who carried deep shame about their Māori identity. The message she absorbed was quiet and corrosive: her appearance mattered more than her worth. "She told me my nose was too big and that I should squeeze it smaller so people wouldn’t know I was Māori," Arnold recalls. At school she felt out of place—neither brown enough nor white enough—before she left home at 15 and began drinking. She became a teenage mother and learned early that being loved often depended on being useful, entertaining or quiet. In the workplace, alcohol became almost a cultural currency: lunches with wine, conferences with endless drinks, nights out that stretched into mornings. "There were lunches with wine, conferences with endless drinks, nights out that turned into mornings. It was normal. No one questioned it," she says.

Even as she rose in her career, the weight of shame followed her. She could perform a cartwheel in a conference room surrounded by executives during a high-achievers weekend in Melbourne, only to spend two hours afterwards curled in a corner, tears streaming down her face and a knot of dread in her stomach. She later described herself as feeling "like an idiot pretending nothing was wrong" as colleagues sniffed the air and asked who had been drinking. There were other episodes—pools during team-building events, lost contact lenses, infidelities—that chipped away at who she believed she should be. The message was clear: to be loved and accepted at work, she needed alcohol, and to hide the truth she used coffee breath to mask the scent.

In her 40s Arnold began life-coaching training and started unpacking old patterns, yet she kept drinking. A mentor challenged her to imagine removing the one thing she believed defined her, and the answer was instantaneous: alcohol. She set a goal of 100 days sober. She made it to day 88 before a small moment—her husband saying he was having a drink—felt like permission to return to old habits. "Stuff it - so am I," she recalls telling herself as she swallowed a drink after nearly three months of sobriety. The taste was awful, and the shame that followed was crushing. Over the next 18 months the pattern amplified: more hangovers, more secrets, more nights that blurred into mornings. Christmas became a gauntlet of planned routes to avoid breath tests, and the couple sometimes stayed up drinking into the early hours, sometimes calling in sick and sometimes going to work foggy. Still, she remained outwardly functional while inwardly exhausted and on the edge of collapse.

The decisive change came the year after that relapse, when a boozy Guns N’ Roses concert produced a moment of stark clarity. Lauree woke the next morning with a heart so loud in her ears she feared it might give out. She rolled over and told her husband, openly, that she was finished with alcohol. From that point, sobriety began in earnest. The first sober Christmas brought a sense of calm she hadn’t felt in years, and New Year’s Eve marked a personal turning point as she faced a room full of old drinking friends and chose not to drink. Her husband, who continued to drink for another two years, eventually stopped as well, and together they rebuilt their life around healthier possibilities.

With drinking out of the picture, travel and opportunity followed. Over the past 18 months Lauree and her husband have traveled more than they had in years: a month in the United States, solo trips to Bali, and plans for four countries already this year. They shifted money away from alcohol toward experiences, and they rediscovered time—time to cook breakfast, walk on the beach, or simply be present. Their 22-year-old daughter expressed pride in her mother’s transformation, a sentiment Arnold says is unsurprisingly meaningful. "There is nothing better than hearing that," she notes, adding that the absence of a hangover and the freedom to choose her days has redefined what she can do with her life.

If she could speak to the girl she once was, the 15-year-old who walked out the door, Arnold says she would tell her, softly but clearly, that she loves her. "Because that’s all she ever wanted." Today, the life she and her husband are building is defined by travel, curiosity, and joy rather than avoidance and fear. Holidays revolve around shared adventures rather than avoidance of the next drink. They wake to clear heads and clear calendars, and they approach the world with a refreshed sense of possibility. The journey from a high-functioning drinker to a sober life, she says, is not a simple line but a sustained choice to reclaim one’s time, health and relationships.

Health professionals note that visible success stories like Arnold’s reflect a broader conversation about how alcohol use can mask deeper wounds and how sobriety can unlock physical and mental well-being, along with opportunities for personal growth and family reconciliation. For Arnold, the decision to quit was not about punishment but about preserving life and rebuilding trust with herself and her loved ones. Today she emphasizes that sobriety does not erase the past, but it reframes what comes next: a future in which the mind is free to pursue what truly matters, and each new day is a choice rather than a consequence.