It also felt like one of the safest festivals I’ve been to, particularly as a woman. There were plenty of women walking around the grounds completely nude, and while this might have been a big leap for me, I felt comfortable enough to go skinny dipping at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, confident that I wouldn’t experience any sort of harassment or unwanted advances – something I can never be sure of at other festivals even when fully clothed.

Hannah Abend runs sexual empowerment workshops for women at Medicine, and she says this is one of the only festivals where she feels comfortable doing so. “It’s a good space to hold a workshop because people aren’t hungover and they’re also open to these kinds of things,” she says. “People would make fun of these types of workshops at other kinds of festivals.”

Just 24 hours into Medicine, I find myself starting to lean into it. To my shock, my first tarot session, with reader Nix Palomba, who was offering readings in the healing village, left me in tears following one of the most honest conversations I’d had about myself and my feelings in months, maybe even years.

Without a trace of alcohol in my system, I was opening up to strangers, as well as my friend who I was attending with, and bonding far more than we usually do during drunken club nights.

Alcohol can be used as a form of release for many people, myself included – it allows me to relax and be vulnerable with others, totally unashamedly. I doubted that a sober festival could ever offer the same experience, but holding hands with one of my longest-standing friends as we counted to three and screamed at the top of our lungs, all on the instructions of a performer who encouraged us to lean into the “sincerity of Medicine”, I realised that there are plenty of ways to access that side of myself without waking up with a banging headache and a lingering sense of anxiety.

After a weekend of yoga, meditation and even a reflexology massage, I arrived home from Medicine feeling refreshed and content – a stark contrast to when I arrived home from Glastonbury without my voice and with three days booked off work to recover. It would be cliche to say that I ‘found myself’ at a sober festival, but I certainly discovered that there’s a part of me that is more than capable of having a good time without alcohol. And that it’s possible to enjoy the Sunday night before the working week rather than spending it consumed by dread. Who knew?

Images: Alice Porter

“I thought an alcohol-free festival would be boring, but I danced, laughed and cried like never before”