I started drinking when I was 12 years old.
I mean don’t get me wrong it was never a problem, it wasn’t like I was drinking every day. I just sometimes had blackouts. And then those sometimes became fairly often, but between those times it was generally fine so, I can’t say I ever had a problem.
I could be the absolute life and soul of the party; funny and brash, and able to drag everyone out of their comfort zones to create a wild night out from a casual get together.
But I was also prone to going too far.
I would wake up the next morning with very few memories, bruises on my temples from punching myself, and a lot of apologising to do.
But I was sure it wouldn’t happen again, I’d just drink a bit less next time.
Although, alcohol has a way of making you feel, and I found that during the week, working and living without drinking made me feel disconnected and unattached to the world. Once I’d had that first sip at the weekend I could relax back into my skin again. I could be the wittiest, most at ease version of myself. So if one sip could make me feel like that, surely another could only improve it?
“I could stop if I wanted to, I just don’t want to.”
I lived by this mantra, as many addicts have and still do. And to be honest, I’m still not sure if I feel totally comfortable calling myself an addict. I stopped drinking of my own accord with no external help. I was working in a bar and it was all too easy to be drinking every day after work with my colleagues, but once I had it in my mind that I was going to stop for a year (after Facebook’s algorithm decided to show me targeted ads for “One year no beer” a few too many times to ignore), there was nothing that would convince me otherwise. So, can I really be an addict if I managed to stop so easily?
Well, I suppose it depends on your barometer for levels of ease. It wasn’t easy losing friends over the years. It wasn’t easy being afraid of myself. It wasn’t easy being unable to decipher between drunken half-memories and dreams sometimes.
I caused an inordinate amount of harm and destruction because of my predilection for alcohol— I cut myself, I hurt friends and partners(emotionally), I even slept on the street a couple of times. All because I loved drinking so much. I loved who I was when I drank so much.
The hardest part about learning to live without alcohol has been rediscovering who I am without alcohol. I feel boring sometimes. I’m disappointed that I can’t be that wild guy full of crazy antics, and I wonder if people liked me better when I drank. For a long time, I didn’t understand what my role was anymore.
I had been my problems for as long as I could remember, now I was my slow, patient process of self-betterment.
The first time I went to a club sober I started to mourn my past life. I was entering into a familiar setting as a new person, and I didn’t know if I fit into the mould my past self had left vacant for me. I’d cultivated a personality based around drinking. That of a troubled soul who hid it so well, but not well enough that everyone didn’t know he was troubled. The archetypal sad clown. Giving up drinking meant learning to cope with my problems in a healthier, but less dramatic fashion — I struggled with this realisation also. I had been my problems for as long as I could remember, now I was my slow, patient process of self-betterment. That guy didn’t sound as much fun to me.
When I gave up drinking I also realised that I had no idea what I actually liked. What I was passionate about — what I had to talk about, besides the aforementioned chaos. I had never been able to commit to anything when I was drinking. Everything was a short-term exciting prospect, but when it came time to knuckle down and do the work, I was far too preoccupied with socialising or nursing the resulting hangover. So when I removed the alcohol from the equation, suddenly I was just someone who did nothing. I had no hobbies, no interests, and no clue where to start.
So I sat down and wrote a list of everything in my life that brought me joy. I did this a few times in fact. I made plans for the future based on them, and if I couldn’t think of where I wanted to be I asked myself where I definitely didn’t want to be and worked backwards from there.
First, I set myself an easy goal. I practised Spanish using Duolingo every day for fifteen minutes . In fact, this actually preceded the abstinence by about five months, but it helped me transition from doing nothing to doing something.
Next, I got a gym membership and started going three times a week without a clue about what I was doing. I googled voraciously for answers. Workout plans, eating plans, how to lift weights with correct form, how to lose weight. It took time, and I got things wrong repeatedly, but I started to figure it out, bit by bit.
I started writing more. I finished some of the half-written drafts I had stashed away in folders and online, and I realised they weren’t as bad as I’d believed they were when I stopped writing them. I joined writing groups and started editing a friend’s work for her, and I took the first tiny steps towards thinking I could make a career out of it.
Finally, I cycled 3700 km from London to Athens with a friend over a period of 44 days. It was hard, I was injured from day one, and struggling with money not long after. We got chased by dogs, had huge gaping rifts torn (briefly) into our friendship and got stranded on the motorway in Macedonia, but it was incredible, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I hadn’t stopped drinking.
People would ask me if I was going to have a drink at the end of the initial planned year’s break, and I considered it— but I know now that I still have a long way to go, to find something in life I care dearly enough about to choose it over alcohol, and if I were to start drinking again it wouldn’t be long before I started overdoing it again, and then everything I gained in the interim would just have been something I’d done in the past.
I won’t lie to you and say I don’t still feel pangs of FOMO when I’m in a bar or at a party surrounded by people drinking. Or that I don’t wish I could occasionally have a glass of wine on a date, to summon a more wild and spontaneous version of myself, but I haven’t felt more stable or capable of achieving my goals at any point in my life so far, and I wouldn’t trade that in for a million good nights out.
Leave a Reply