Woman who had alcohol addiction before collapse in her 20s finds sobriety and launches booze-free events company

A woman who developed an alcohol addiction from the age of 13 and stopped drinking only after collapsing one day in her mid-20s has discussed her journey to sobriety after setting up an alcohol-free events company to promote inclusive socialising where everyone can “have a gorgeous drink”.

Yasmin Spark, 35, a digital project manager and the founder of Align Events, who lives in Oxford, said she started drinking when she was just 13 years old.

She would go to birthday events and house parties, drinking spirits and alcopops to achieve “maximum drunkenness” to mask her social anxiety, and this continued for years.

Her alcoholism reached its peak in her 20s, where she was drinking every night and experiencing “terrible migraines”, depression and “hangxiety” – but everything changed in 2014.

“I collapsed and I didn’t know what was wrong with me, so I went to the doctor and I was diagnosed with a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy,” Yasmin told PA Real Life.

“It was not related to the drinking, but it was the thing in my life that made me realise, I actually need to get support for this, I need to get mental health support.”

Yasmin’s dilated cardiomyopathy diagnosis – a disease of the heart muscle – was the turning point, and her journey to sobriety inspired the creation of Align Events in March 2022.

The business emerged as a pop-up bar that offers bespoke cocktails, using natural, local ingredients, as Yasmin realised alcohol-free options were limited and often an “afterthought”.

On the surface, Yasmin said it may have appeared to others that she did not have a drinking problem, because she had a successful career, a social life, and was able to live independently, but internally she felt “empty” and was self-medicating with alcohol.

Now eight years sober, Yasmin said: “I feel really proud of how far I’ve come, but it’s not like you stop drinking and then your life’s perfect.

“It’s been a journey, but it’s nice that I can look back with clarity and see how I’ve increased my boundaries and made great friendships, and I can enjoy being present.

“My main purpose now is to bring inclusive socialising to people throughout the UK, as I don’t want there to be any barriers to people connecting.

“Everybody deserves to be included and celebrated and have a gorgeous drink.”

Yasmin said she started drinking “very early on” as a young teenager, and, since she was tall, she would routinely get served in bars with “nobody batting an eyelid”.

Growing up in an environment where excessive drinking was glamorised, she would go to events and house parties and get drunk, because she did not want to “miss out”.

“What we were growing up with in the 2000s era was just a real ‘ladette’ culture, and it was all around us,” Yasmin said.

“It was on TV, in films, and everyone that we looked up to who was famous or in media was drinking and smoking.”

Yasmin said her alcoholism reached its peak in her 20s, when she entered the workforce as a digital project manager and started living on her own.

The pressure of her job, along with trying to “figure out how you do everything post-university”, meant Yasmin used alcohol as a coping mechanism.

“I got really burnt out and I didn’t know how to cope with those feelings; I was just drinking to numb them,” she said.

“All of my friends were in that same group … and we were all too busy working and trying to survive.

“Our lives revolved around work and drink.”

Yasmin said she would drink “every single night” during the week – either half or a full bottle of wine – and then she would go on a “bender” every weekend.

She would often “black out” and wake up not knowing where she was, and she would frequently lose her bag, keys and phone.

Looking back now, she realises she put herself in extremely dangerous situations as a young woman.

“One time I came home and I was so drunk that I couldn’t find my keys, and I literally slept outside my front door all night, with my bag and everything, in the cold,” Yasmin said.

“I potentially could have died from hypothermia, and anybody could have just come and done anything (to me) – but I woke up the next morning and the keys were in the bottom of my bag.

“For me, I just think you should never, ever be putting yourself in a situation voluntarily where you could be hurting yourself.”

Yasmin said she developed a reputation of being a “party girl”, but in reality she was extremely anxious, and the alcohol created a “persona”.

It was only when Yasmin collapsed unexpectedly in 2014, aged 25, that she realised her lifestyle and drinking habits needed to change.

She said she knew she needed to “stop behaviours that were going to exacerbate” the heart condition and she reached out to a therapist and the charity Alcohol Change UK for help.

From then, Yasmin said the drinking “slowly phased out” – but it did not come without its challenges.

Transitioning to a sober lifestyle meant “severing bonds” with friends and learning new ways to socialise, which was “frustrating and isolating”.

However, by throwing herself into new hobbies and focusing on other interests, such as learning Korean and going to the gym, she was able to break the cycle.

“It just came to a point where I wasn’t able to enjoy my life, or fully realise what I wanted to do and who I was, and the alcohol was a hindrance of it,” she said.

“That’s how I explain my relationship with alcohol, I had to stop it to be able to carry on my journey of myself fully.”

Yasmin has been sober for eight years and has realised “life is better” without alcohol – but with her sobriety she discovered that non-alcoholic drinks were often an “afterthought”.

This led to the creation of Align Events in March 2022, which was founded thanks to the support of Hatch Enterprise, a charity that supports under-represented entrepreneurs, with money raised by online charitable raffle company Raffolux.

Meanwhile, the business, which offers “gorgeous, gluten-free, vegan, non-alcoholic” drinks, has gone from strength to strength.

The company currently operates as a pop-up bar, but it is Yasmin’s “dream” that she can one day open her own permanent alcohol-free venue.

Speaking about her advice to others, Yasmin said everyone’s journey is different, but she would urge others to seek help and focus on “self-care”.

“I genuinely don’t think I would have turned my life around, or even got to the stage where I want to set up a business to help others, without therapy,” she said.

“I think people feel that if they are not at the lowest that they could be – they don’t drink every night, they don’t have a bottle in their hand – that they don’t need help.

“Don’t wait for it to be a terrible thing where it’s impacting your life before you decide to take steps towards bettering your physical and mental health.”

To find out more about Align Events, visit: alignevents.co.uk

For more information about its forthcoming event on February 2, visit: eventbrite.co.uk/e/haus-of-elixirs-tickets-806483171877

To find out more about Hatch Enterprise and Raffolux, visit hatchenterprise.org or raffolux.com.