In 2014, I turned forty. I’d always envisaged I’d be a skinny, coiffured, solvent, non-smoking, possibly married with at least one dependant, employed, comfortable, happy, sex bomb.
The truth was, I was a single, Tinder-obsessed, childless, overweight, unfit, overemotional, argumentative, cigarette smoking, binge drinker.
I tried half-heartedly to be fab at forty. I signed up to a boot camp, started yet another diet, and tried (in vain) to ditch the fags but my choice to continue binge drinking to excess scuppered any chance of complete success.
As a child, I remember alcohol as a magical liquid reserved exclusively for adults. It fascinated me. I’d already started to exhibit traits of a party animal; I didn’t like going to bed when we had guests or miss out on grown up conversations, and I certainly didn’t like to leave a party. At all. Ever.
As I grew older, my reluctance to go home at a decent hour didn’t improve. In fact, as I gained more freedom, it got progressively worse. By the time I left home, the off switch was well and truly jammed into ‘on’ mode.
My hangovers became more ferocious as my drinking increased. They were all consuming, debilitating and long. Every time I inflicted another hangover upon myself, a little voice inside my head grew louder questioning ‘Is this what you really want? Is this how you want to feel? Is this it?
My relationship with alcohol was horrendous. It was a form of self-harm, a perpetual cycle of self-sabotage to such an extent that I just didn’t care about the physical effects; damaging my liver, killing my brain cells, destroying my stomach lining and sucking the life out of my skin. The eczema I had suffered from since I was a child was sore and out of control, my tummy was constantly irritated, and I endured repetitive ear infections from smoking. I was always tired, moody, emotional, overweight, self-loathing, anxious. My body was screaming out for me to stop but I just carried on regardless.
I was in complete alcohol fuelled denial. I was in my own self-inflicted hell. Something had to change, and that something was me.
My initial plan was to stop drinking for a year. It would begin on New Year’s Eve 2016, as the clock struck midnight, and I would document my journey online to keep me accountable. I would then revive my alcoholic love affair exactly one year later with an alcoholic celebration like no other.
I began by researching sobriety online. I needed to know exactly how someone would go about turning their back on the biggest crutch of the 21st century. I joined support groups, followed blogs and purchased ‘quit lit’. I literally flooded my head with sober thoughts; my pickled brain was spinning.
But my body had other ideas. Stressed and exhausted, I was struck down with flu in November 2016 and by default, my sobriety began 6 weeks early. Operation Sober Fish had begun.
It was nerve-wracking putting myself out there for the first time, admitting publicly that I had a problem with a substance, especially one that is considered so socially acceptable and was intrinsically linked to every part of my life.
It soon became clear that alcohol was a far bigger problem than I ever could have imagined. No one escapes completely from the drug we are led to believe is so innocent, all wrapped up in a shiny glass bottle with a pretty label. It transpired that there are thousands of us sat at home at night, looking for the answer at the bottom of a bottle when ironically, the answer couldn’t be further away from it. I learned that I was not alone, that there was a whole big massive gang of us, unhappy and drunk, wishing there was another way.
Sobriety wasn’t as simple as swapping my drink for a non-alcoholic version. Alcohol had influenced absolutely every part of my life from morning until night for the last 25 years, and to remove it meant huge change. Its removal would dictate what I did to relax, for fun, who I hung out with, what I enjoyed. It would change the foods I ate, my daily routine, my sleep patterns. Sobriety was about a lifestyle change, not just a choice of refreshment.
6 months into my alcohol-free year, I made the final decision that I wanted to remain sober for life. Sobriety was the only valid conclusion for me; my skin, hair and eyes all shone with health and vitality, I was happy, I was content, my moods were stable, I wasn’t making stupid, uninformed decisions. Overall, my life was just better, and alcohol had no part in it.
Once I stopped knocking back alcohol like it was the freshest water from a Highland spring, and decided to halt the damage I was doing to my amazing body and precious brain, my wonderful life began to unfold in front of me.
Sober people have always been considered as the outsiders, the oddballs, the minority, because of their choice to refrain from swallowing a lethal substance. I feel it’s more like a secret club, a bit like a cult or a religion, which until you fully embrace it, you can’t quite understand it.
Alcohol clouded my judgement about myself. It gave me false hope that I would feel better, that I would be a happier, shinier version of me. Instead, it made me feel a failure, unworthy, fat, unlovable. It was a fun sponge. It made me sad, depressed & distorted my view of the world and myself. It stole all the good bits of me and replaced them with bad.
Sobriety gave me my life back. It turned my light back on and made me shine. It has given me possibilities beyond my wildest dreams and allowed me to fall in love with who I really am. It is colourful and joyous and full of possibility and best of all, I am finally free.
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