Freedom to Fly

For me, regularly drinking alcohol generated terrible feelings of being worthless and inferior to everyone else I ever came into contact with. In addition, this destructive assault on my self-belief always came to the fore simultaneously with a hefty dose of what can only be described as Negative Mental Attitude.

It was the world’s fault that I did not achieve what I wanted in life, that my marriage had ended in its infancy, that I hated my job, that I was struggling financially – there was always someone else to blame and never me.

One of the greatest gifts of sobriety is the joyful return to living in the Real World. Occasionally there are difficult patches which must be navigated through and not drinking certainly does not make life a guaranteed bed of roses; what living alcohol-free does provide, however, is a reality check and a realisation that whilst things may not always be quite how you would choose you are equipped with all the tools required to make the best of your hand.

Instead of enduring a crippling dose of internal criticism whenever I meet a person who I deem to be superior in some respect to me, I now recognise their plus points as nice qualities which I admire rather than an emotional hand grenade to hurl at my fragile sense of self; so if someone is very pretty I consider them as, well, being pretty; as in ‘She’s pretty – wow, what gorgeous hair/eyes/cheekbones.’ This is infinitely healthier than the old alternative of ‘Oh my God, she is so beautiful. Look at me in comparison; I am fat, ugly, with horrible hair, awful clothes and generally hideous. I must run home at once and hide away until I forget that I ever had the misfortune to stand near this stunning creature.’

Nowadays I recognise that whilst I have my plus points and am neither hideously ugly nor out-of-this-world beautiful, I am just fine the way I am. If I meet people who are prettier/cleverer/wittier/more interesting than I am then it’s a pleasure being in their company and enjoying their special qualities. I have come to understand that there will always be someone who is doing something or looking better than I will ever be able to, and people who have amazing physiques that I will probably never attain, and people who are fortunate enough to have long, flowing, glossy tresses which I know I will never be able to grow.

But that’s ok, because they will never have what I have either.

Not drinking stops the endless cycle of self-loathing and negativity caused by depression and alcohol-induced shame. Living alcohol-free allows you to come forth like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon and to subsequently realise all your qualities that have previously been smothered by alcohol for so long.

Give yourself a chance; stop drinking and spread your wings.

Finding Your Way Out Of The Darkness

During my alcohol-fuelled past life I was so ashamed of my little boozy secret, particularly the lonely drinking and the inability to stop once I’d begun, that I covered up the negativity with a hefty dose of bravado and a tenacious refusal to let my hangovers get in the way of life.

Behind the runs I would force myself to go on the morning after a binge, beneath the smiles at work and the heavy make-up to conceal the facial signs of my hangovers, I was completely beset with  agonising emotional pain and heartache caused by what I perceived as my failure to ‘drink like normal people do.’

I couldn’t admit to myself that I had a problem so I was never going to offload my awful secret to anyone else. And so I continued to drink to help forget about the inner turmoil, and I refused to fully acknowledge what I now recognise as a serious dependency upon alcohol.

At my lowest ebb I could barely look another human being in the eye. I stopped caring about the level of harm I was inflicting on my physical self, and conversely I harboured thoughts pertaining to hurting myself and the pointlessness of my life.

For a long time since becoming free of alcohol I haven’t experienced any real depression or sadness as my life has tended to go from strength to strength ever since I put down the bottle. But I clearly remember the weighty burden of depression and how it made making even the simplest of decisions a frightening and exhausting task of epic proportions.

This is why it can be so incredibly hard to make the choice to stop drinking – the short term relief from the feelings of sadness and depression that can be found in alcohol is so tempting in its false ameliorative quality that to find the strength to rebuff it in your darkest of hours is challenging to say the least. And even if you are aware of the negative repercussions of alcohol, when depressed and consumed by self-loathing it is often the intention to inflict further misery on yourself, as opposed to seeking a way out of your depression and into happiness once again.

The thing with all of the above is that if you can find the motivation to stop drinking whilst feeling so low, fairly soon you will notice a lift in your mood and will gradually witness the rejuvenation of your self-esteem. And when this happens, you will no longer have the intense desire to hurt yourself, rather the opposite will be true; you will want to look after yourself and live a happy existence. In not much time at all, the negative blinkers will fall by the wayside and the world will open up to you as a place filled with possibilities and potential, the restrictive, bleak future that you had mapped out for yourself fading into nothingness.

It is a hugely difficult and brave thing to take the first step into a new life of which you cannot see or even imagine, but it is only the first few footsteps which you will have to navigate in the darkness; once you have made it so far, the sun will come out and shine up a path right before your eyes – a path which you will truly want to follow.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Oh, I Don’t Drink!

I had a funny moment today when a sudden, out-of-the-blue thought sprang up and disrupted my quiet, plodding along morning brain. I don’t know what prompted it but landing squarely and suddenly at the forefront of my mind were these words; ‘I don’t drink, I am a non-drinker, I have become somebody who does not ever touch alcohol…as if I have certain religious beliefs that forbid me from drinking alcohol I just never, ever drink.’

This internal confirmation of my teetotal commitment tumbled rudely into my chain of thoughts and made me catch my breath. If you had known me before I stopped drinking you would know why. I never, ever imagined that I would be a person who did not drink booze. I used to be, very simply, a drinker – it’s what I was known for.

I recall going for dinner at a boyfriend’s parents’ house in my late teens, his father being a wine connoisseur who enjoyed indulging in his love of fine wines in the company of guests. Upon settling into the sumptuous settee before we ate I was handed a glass of something red and fantastically expensive. As he passed me the elegant wine glass, the father bore his eyes into mine and said sternly ‘This is a VERY good wine – please do not guzzle it.’ He totally had my number.

When I look back over photographs stretching back twenty years I see alcohol featuring in almost all of them; holiday snaps, Christmases, birthdays, nights out, nights in – life was one very long and raucous party and I was usually to be found slap bang in the middle of it, shining in the spotlight, always drinking.

I have worked very hard on being sober and happy over the last couple of years; it didn’t come easy and I have expended a lot of time and energy in my acceptance of this radical departure from old destructive habits. I think I’ve been so busy with ensuring I am ok about not drinking that the end result has almost arrived unnoticed – that is to say the transition from colossal pisshead to totally straight person has happened amidst such a sea of change that this morning’s sudden and stark thought surprised me.

Me? Teetotal? Now there’s something I thought I would never say. I am now so definitively a non-drinker whereas once I was defined by my enormous affection for wine and enthusiasm for losing myself in the maddening, mind-altering, crazed mayhem that it initiated in me. Five years ago I would have bet large amounts of money on me drinking my way through life until the alcoholic sun eventually sank on my world and plunged everything in it into complete blackness.

Today I am better – very different, but very much better. Which is kind of surprising.

Proud

I only have three pieces of jewellery that I have sentimental attachment to; my engagement ring, a silver bracelet that my eldest daughter bought me last Christmas, and the orange disc bracelet that I ordered to commemorate my commitment to life as a Soberista and which arrived this morning.

I had the date of the Soberistas website launch engraved on it, 26.11.12 and the word ‘Soberistas’ and I am wearing it with pride! When I look at the bracelet it makes me remember all the fantastic things in my life that have happened as a result of me stopping drinking, of all the amazing people who help each other every day on Soberistas, how my life really began properly when I decided to live it alcohol-free and how I will never let myself get as low as I was just two years ago, ever again.

I can’t take the credit for the idea of wearing a Soberistas bracelet – Katey and Josephinerina are the ones to thank for that! But I am so grateful to them for thinking up such a positive and proud way to celebrate their new lives as Soberistas. I absolutely love wearing my little orange tribute to my sobriety!

Sticks and Stones

Labelling human beings is not good. Once you have been pigeon holed by society it is extraordinarily difficult to rid yourself of that tag and carve out a new definition of who you are.

In the early weeks of my new teetotal life I came to the conclusion that I was ‘an alcoholic.’ I remember clear as day admitting this terrible truth to myself, something I had been shying away from for years, and finally, crushingly, wearily nodding in quiet acceptance of the fact that I was diseased and would forever be a troubled soul who needed to rebuff all temptation of alcohol in order to avoid the dreaded relapse.

My self-esteem was at an all-time low back then. Labelling myself ‘an alcoholic’ only added fuel to the fire as the word evoked feelings of failure and weakness. I was consumed with a sense of powerlessness but plodded on regardless with my desire to live in sobriety, hoping that eventually I would feel something more than abject misery.

As the weeks turned into months I changed my perspective and I now look back on my drinking years as a couple of decades in which I drank way too much and was most definitely dependant (emotionally and mentally) upon, and probably rather in love with, alcohol. When I stopped drinking I experienced no physical withdrawal symptoms, merely a tough internal battle to rid myself of the mental cravings and urges that I had relented to for so many years and were therefore pretty difficult to overcome. For a fairly long period, maybe a year, I also had to discover who I really was beneath the booze, learn to deal with my emotions like a grown-up instead of pouring anaesthetic liquid down my neck at the slightest sign of trouble, overcome a multitude of regrets and develop interests in activities other than boozing in order to fill my time.

In weaving my way through the jungle of emotional baggage I’d acquired as someone who drinks too much, I slowly became a non-addicted human being, free of dependencies on any mind-altering substances, just a regular person who sees life through the untainted lens of sober vision. I dropped the notion that I was and always would be ‘an alcoholic,’ as the idea that you are suffering from an addiction when you haven’t touched the substance in question for two years and have absolutely no desire to ever do so again just seems plain weird.

I am in no doubt that if I had a drink then I would be back where I started from pretty quickly, but in the same way that someone with a nut allergy would avoid nuts like the plague but never label themselves a ‘nut addict’ for doing so, I cannot conceive of being an ‘alcoholic’ purely on the basis that I know now that alcohol and I do not mix, and will never do so.

If you have recently begun living (or are considering doing so) a healthy alcohol-free life then I would avoid labelling yourself ‘an alcoholic.’ It is a damaging term that is rife with negative connotations and which often sparks off prejudices that are difficult to fight, particularly when you are already at a low ebb. Referring to yourself in that way can also help consolidate the idea that you are powerless to a disease, when in reality you are master or mistress of your own destiny – YOU can decide to stop drinking, and in doing so you will learn to overcome the mental or emotional dependency that you have on alcohol.

In the end, ‘alcoholic’ is just a word so ask yourself the question of what’s more important; an arbitrary collection of letters or having the best possible chance at living happily and free of a dependency on anything, but you?

One-Way Ticket to Happiness

A few years ago amidst a period of very heavy drinking, I went on holiday with my then partner and our three children (2 of his, 1 of mine).

Right up until the day we left I had been downing at least a bottle of wine a night, every night, for weeks on end and as a result had experienced a number of distressing events, arguments, traumas and other assorted booze-related catastrophes.

I made the decision to have an alcohol-free holiday because we were taking our three children with us and I couldn’t trust myself to not do or say something terrible that would ruin everyone’s memories of that week forever more.

It was a simple decision to make and a relatively easy one to stick to. We drove down to Cornwall and stayed in a beautiful big house set in rolling green hills and farmland. The sun shone all week and we spent seven days surfing, swimming, eating ice creams, and in the evenings played trivial pursuits and watched films. We caught some amazing waves and I remember one in particular that my ex-partner’s daughter, my daughter and me rode together, the three of us careering towards the beach screaming and laughing at the breath-taking way we had been possessed by the sea.

I spent the week relaxed, happy and content, relieved not to be waking up each morning with that familiar sense of dread and having to apologise to those around me for my lack of control and inability to realise that I had reached my wine limit but still continued to drink, yet again. How do you apologise to children for being drunk and stupid? You can’t really – they don’t, and neither should we expect them to, understand.

However, as was my way back then, I reached the end of the holiday feeling refreshed and full of vigour, tanned, happy and free and then hit the bottle again upon reaching home. It would take me a further five years to stop for good.

As we approach this year’s holiday to Cornwall in a few weeks’ time I am not in a position where I need to consider whether to cut out alcohol or not for the seven days I spend with my fiancé and two daughters in a caravan near the sea. I am lucky enough to have reached a stage in my life where I know I will never put myself through the torment of substance abuse ever again. My holiday at the end of May will be the same as every other holiday I will take during the rest of my life – a relaxing break which doesn’t involve booze, regrets and hangovers.

Drinking on holiday for me was like going sailing in a boat with a hole in the bottom –it starts out being fun but soon enough it’s going to sink and take everyone down with it.

Take Good Care of Your Self Esteem

What happens to so many people in our society as they grow from children to adults and in the process gradually shed their self-belief and confidence? Between the ages of 13 and 35 I slipped into an alcohol dependency that became so deeply embedded in who I thought I was that the revelation of the real me who came to light after becoming teetotal came as a huge surprise.

As a child I was brimming with self-confidence, a little bit stubborn, a high achiever and natural leader. I threw myself gung-ho into whatever activity I was doing and thought I would reach nothing less than amazing and dizzy heights of success in whatever field I chose to venture into – post Oxbridge, of course.

Oh how reality bites – by age 14 I was drinking regularly, smoking, obsessed with boys, rather less obsessed with school work and venturing ever near to the brink of an eating disorder which fully took hold a few months later. Over the course of the next 5 years, my self-belief nosedived and by the time I was 20 I was living with an ex-con, drinking like a fish and struggling to get through my degree course. I hardly ate, smoked 20 a day and had no desire to do anything with my time other than get absolutely out of my head.

I don’t really have any definitive answers for the puzzle of how that happened. I came from a happy and secure family, I wasn’t bullied at school, there were no major traumas of which I bore deep mental scars. The only constants in the trajectory of my youth, twenties and early thirties were alcohol and cigarettes.

As I spend my life now without the crutch of alcohol, or of any other addiction (excluding coffee and chocolate, but they constitute small-fry in comparison to previous vices) for that matter, it seems entirely probable that the somewhat skewed path that my life took prior to quitting alcohol 2 years ago was as a direct result of too much booze. I was permanently depressed as a consequence of all that wine, I neglected to eat properly owing to a huge lack of self-esteem and some misguided belief that if I was super thin I would be super happy, and not eating caused me to suffer terrible mood swings; I self-medicated these with more wine, and the alcohol was also responsible for many of the poor choices of partner that I made over the years – many of whom I would never have been within 10 yards of had I been sober.

I see my 14 year old daughter now caught like a rabbit in the headlights, choosing whether to believe in something good for herself, or throwing it all to one side and getting on with the business of self-contempt. It seems that, especially for women, developing a sense of low self-worth is perceived as interesting at best, romantic at worse. As a teenager I fell for it hook, line and sinker, filling my head with sexy notions of messed up women, the idea that falling into a state of vulnerability and despair would somehow enhance my attractiveness; a Betty Blue for Sheffield.

Today, as a strong, positive and determined woman of 37, I see nothing to shy away from in the idea of a woman being together and able to take care of herself and her family without the need for a crutch of any sort (apart from the chocolate and the coffee – see above).

It is now my mission to pass this ideal on to my wonderful, intelligent, capable and strong teenage daughter.