Sandra Bullock’s Smile

It’s interesting – almost intriguing – for me to hear from those around me what they did see or notice when I was drinking. I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time Friday. I’m going to call her Bullock because she resembles Sandra Bullock quite a lot and for a long time I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who she reminded me of but then it dawned on me that she has the exact same features as that wonderful actress. Anyway. We were both going to the gym Friday morning (I work every other day when the people I work for are away so Friday was a day off) and decided to meet up afterwards for some light lunch and coffee. I’ve not seen Bullock since before I quit drinking. We don’t know each other that well but if feels like we do – perhaps it’s because we’re both immigrants and have our native Sweden in common that has meant there is an immediate connection, I don’t know. She’s one of those real salt of the earth people, perhaps that’s why I always liked her so much. Natural, open, genuine – you know, the sort of qualities you’d list as desirable traits in friends.

I mentioned the gym? Can you tell I feel ever so smug and virtuous? I do. I feel like super woman! I still have a few sessions left with Dimples but have now officially signed up with the lycra inferno just down the road, the same gym that hubby goes to, and Friday before meeting with Bullock I had the free PT session they give you when you part with your bank details. A young stack of muscle mass took me through a bunch of stuff but I missed Dimples. Unfair, I know, because you’re never going to have the same quality of instruction in a gym as you do when you have a PT focused on you, the whole you and nothing but you. I shouldn’t complain, and how much fun would it have been for a dude half my age trying to come up with some exercises for an old drunk? He did seem quite amused but at least he didn’t try to make me do burpees.

Yes, I am feeling VERY happy about this life decision of mine to get fit, healthy and strong. And so obviously I’m keen to talk about it, and especially so when Bullock herself had been to the gym Friday morning. It just didn’t seem right to just say I’ve decided to get fit – even though of course that IS true. It doesn’t tell the whole story. So we chatted away about getting into fitness for a while.

“It’s been a strange year, in a good way,” I told her, stirring my coffee as I paused and wondered if there is no other way to drop the A-bomb than dropping it and realised there isn’t, “I quit drinking alcohol, which is a biggie for me.”

“That’s great,” Bullock said and smiled her identical-to-Sandra-Bullock smile, “what made you decide that?”

Spit it out, Anna. What are you going to say, girl? The truth or some half baked nonsense about a health kick? Come on, now! Big girl pants pulled up, now go!

“I’m an alcoholic.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m an alcoholic,” I repeated and smiled.

“Huh?” Bullock went and leaned a little closer, perhaps her hearing is as terrible as mine but in that cafe the acoustics are terrible so it’s probably hard to hear anyway.

“I’m an AL-CO-HO-LIC,” I said and emphasised each syllable.

“Oh,” Bullock replied, looked at me and smiled, “wow, I didn’t know that.”

Well, how could she? Again I was met with the same response I’ve had over and over and over – kindness, sometimes a bit of surprise and interest. It was quite literally as though I’d just told her I have a bit of a cold – the experssion on her face was friendly concern. Just a statement of fact that didn’t warrant a huge reaction, just an acknowledgment that it’s serious but not met with a shock horror reaction. And then Bullock told me, equally matter-of-factly, about a battle of hers.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she mused, “You just never know what people go through or who hides what.”

True. You wouldn’t know from looking at Bullock that she fought the battle she told me about. It just goes to show how democratic these things are. And it makes me think of the tattoo someone in my family told me they’d get – a tattoo of a tree with a deep set of roots to illustrate how you don’t know what’s underneath given you just see the tree and not its roots.

“You know, I was thinking about the last time we saw each other on my way here and wondered if you noticed at the time,” I said.

The last time we met up was at the pub and I was so aware of it at the time, just like I always was when I drank socially. I ordered a large glass of wine, Bullock ordered a small one. And then I ordered another when she was still working on hers. A large glass of wine in the UK is 250ml, a small 125ml. So I had four times the amount she did that time and remember feeling funny about it, as I always did in those situations. I’ll say it again – it’s no fun drinking with non-alkies when you’re an alkie, it’s fucking hard work and fills you with anxiety and stress.

“No, I don’t remember thinking that,” Bullock told me inbetween mouthfuls of her eggs on toast, “but I did wonder what was going on when you were so keen for me to leave when you needed to pop in to the shop afterwards.”

Lightbulb. THAT part I’d forgotten all about but suddenly remembered when she mentioned it. Yes, I needed to get a box of wine and I didn’t want her to see. And I remember her being hard to get rid of as we were both heading in the same direction home from the high street. I kept trying to say goodbye and Bullock kept saying she didn’t mind waiting when I popped in to get whatever I needed to get.

“I remember now,” I said, winced at the shame of it and chuckled, “I needed to get wine and didn’t want you to know.”

“That makes sense now,” Bullock agreed, “it did seem like you didn’t want me to see what you were buying but I just didn’t understand what it was all about.”

So she’d noticed something was off but not the bit I thought she may have paid attention to. It’s both interesting and cringe worthy to talk openly about these things now. The good thing about it is that I can now explain to people around me what was at the root of my strange behaviour. Like my sister-in-law M when we had the conversation and she could tell me what they’d seen, thought and suspected. It’s a weight off my shoulders, not only that I no longer have to drink but more importantly that I no longer have to hide, sneak around, manipulate and lie. Thank God for that, because it doesn’t feel good to do any of those things.

Has anyone else had these conversations with friends and/or family? Open discussions about what was going on and how it felt and was perceived for you and for them?

Today I’m not going to drink.

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Tiny Splinters

I think I’ve been hiding a little behind my alcoholism. Needless to say, being an active alcoholic means your world shrinks and the booze renders you pretty useless – or at least this was the case for me. No way was I able to achieve anything I wanted when I was forever trapped in a vicious circle of being hammered, being destroyed by hangovers or busy planning my next drink. Round and round I went and there was no fourth option, just going around that vicious spiral deeper and deeper until I was so exhausted I couldn’t do it anymore. Yes, drinking meant I couldn’t keep fit – how could I possibly attempt going for a run (or even a walk) when I felt so ill I couldn’t even stand up? How could I possibly string a sentence together, never mind write a book, when even making a doctor’s appointment was more than my fuzzy head could cope with (dial, speak… …no)? Getting out to see friends was akin to swimming with sharks without the damn cage and don’t get me started on jewellery making – why don’t YOU try to solder a small piece of metal and balance a tiny solder splinter on a tiny, almost invisible seam when you have the shakes and are so hungover it’s even affecting your eyesight? Oh, and add a blow torch and acid just for fun. Besides, you would have to be upright so it’s a moot point anyway. Hell, even walking down the road to buy some milk represented an insurmountable challenge most of the time, as did getting the mail from the postboxes on the ground floor and taking the rubbish out.

Luckily I’d got to the point where I realised that it was the booze that made everything this way. Oh, I know, crazy isn’t it? Like it’d be anything else, but a drunkard’s logic alongside furious denial is a very powerful thing. I knew it had in earnest begun its final descent and had isolated me as well as removed all my chances of being the person I’m meant to be. I could see that. I understood that my drinking was holding me back in every way possible. Of course this wasn’t always the case – at one point I was more receptive to the possibility that I might suffer from a mental disorder than consider my drinking as a possible reason why I couldn’t leave the house. Such are the workings of a drunkard’s mind. But eventually I was just at a point where the real culprit was staring me in the face.

Once I truly accepted that my drinking was causing me all manner of harm – and don’t get me wrong, I thank higher powers every fucking day that I did get to that point – I think I also found myself a nice little hiding place. Haven’t pursued my writing in a serious manner? Well, I’m an alcoholic! How could I? Unproductive at work? Well, I got here, didn’t I? Despite a hangover caused by two and a half bottles of wine last night, I made it in so just get off my back, alright? Unfit and given up on the running? Who could possibly do exercise when actively exercising their right to be a drunk? As shitty as it is to be a drunk, it did give me a solid reason I could point to from inside my victim cocoon and blame for all my shortcomings and failures.

See? Being a drunk has its advantages too, and in my case it gave me a nice little one stop shop of excuses that I could hide behind. Poor me, right? And there was also a big part of me that, once I got to my turning point and wanted to get out of that damn bottle, thought everything would just magically fall into place once I’d rid myself of the juice. I think I kind of thought I’d suddenly shine at work. And why not? It’s not rocket science and everything I need to do I could do in my sleep. No tasks are challenging and whilst I was still drinking that was probably a really good thing as it allowed me to focus on just surviving each fucking day without attempting to do anything more complicated than add up some invoices. So I had some idea that once I was sober I’d be a super star and it’d all be magnificent. Well, at any rate that I’d do a low level job brilliantly if that makes sense. Truth is that I’m probably doing an even worse job than before! I’ve not shone one bit – if anything, being sober has done nothing but underline to me how utterly pointless my job is. Of course it was only ever meant to be a Plan B that was meant to sit alongside my Actual Passions (writing and jewellery making) and bring in some money whilst I pursued those, and for a Plan B it’s in truth really fabulous: it’s local, the hours fit perfectly and I work for lovely people. But…. It just feels like a waste of time and the sad reality is that I’m doing a really shockingly bad job. Even sober and therefore at my full wits, I can’t seem to give it any of the energy or clarity of mind I’m now enjoying. It’s not fair on the people I work for and it’s not fair on myself either.

One of the bloggers I follow – Acquiescent Soul – recently expressed how he’s gone from hopeless and sad to frustrated and angry. Although I can’t say I feel angry, I definitely feel frustrated and as I commented to AS I could probably advise myself too: use it as a springboard to find that Real Purpose. It’s always easier to fix other people’s problems than your own, simply because you can see the issue and point at it but you’re not the one who actually has to do the work, but I realised when I typed my comment to his last blog post that what I was saying was as much to myself as it was to him.

With risk of sounding like I’m obsessed with Dimples, the personal trainer with whom I’m having a few sessions to get me started on getting fit, but she said something that really sums a lot of it up: “Your body isn’t Amazon Prime. Don’t expect it to turn up in two days.” Something like that. But that goes not only for getting fit, it goes for everything I might want to achieve. It’s relevant as hell, because I think on some level I did sort of expect life in general now that I’m sober to have that Amazon Prime-esque slant to it.

Quitting drinking doesn’t mean I’ll automatically go and collect the Nobel Prize for Literature any more than it’ll mean I can suddenly run 10k in under an hour the next morning. Work is required. I have to write the first sentence and many thousands to follow it before I can even have shot at getting published, there has to be A Book and that book needs to be written. If I want to be the author, I have to be the person writing it and that includes the first sentence, the thousands to follow and probably blood, sweat and tears being part of the process too.

Getting physically fit now that my body is no longer ravaged by alcohol also requires work. Nope, I couldn’t fit into my skinny jeans after my second session with Dimples but I swear to God there was part of me that fully expected I’d be at least able to pull them up over my hips. Ridiculous, isn’t it? But nope, I have to work and I have to work hard. My first couple of runs were SHITE. I have the 10k app because this is the distance I want to regularly jog, and each run is so far a mixture of walking and running. The first time, still in Amazon Prime mode, I’d selected Week 5. Oh yeah. Walk one minute, run for five. Couldn’t do it. I haven’t gone back to Week 1 – because I just fucking won’t, OK? – but did rewind to Week 3: walk 90 seconds, run 90 seconds, walk 3 minutes, run 3 minutes and then repeat. This I could do. Quite hard the first time but the next easier. A lot easier, even. It’s happening – I am getting fitter and stronger but I’m not getting it for free and nor am I getting it fast. It feels fucking good though and worth every last aching, sweating muscle burn.

Dad turns 70 in September and my brother, golden boy D, has made him a hunting knife. Dad is big on hunting and he collects hunting knives – the handmade, perfectly crafted and often quite ornate ones that you don’t find south of a few thousand krona. And D wanted this sister of his to make the holder for the belt in silver. And I have! It’s not as perfect as the knife and its sheath but it’s handmade by me and I didn’t have to keep re-doing the soldering as I was steady and focused enough to get it right the first time I aimed the blow torch at the silver pieces I needed to fuse together.

And my Plan B job is never going to be fulfilling unless I make it so. I’m in touch with an addiction support charity and will see if one of their administration roles might work. It’s volunteering and would require one day per week. This would probably work with my current job as my employers previously were happy with me doing my jewellery course one day per week. Start on that basis and then who knows what might open up for me once I have my foot in the door of a building I’m keen to enter? I want to pay it forward, this gift of sobriety. Sure, I’m still new-ish on this journey and much work is ahead of me when it comes to ME – a whole lifetime of work, no doubt – but if I can in any way use all those years of heavy drinking to reach others and perhaps even be that one person who really gets what they’re going through or be of help in some other way, then hey – that’d be one of my greatest achievements.

Bottom line is that quitting drinking isn’t enough to make everything the way it should be or to get me on fast forward to everything I want to do and achieve, but it allows me to take the first step, write the first sentence, show up for the things I want to show up for, hold steady when soldering metal and, well, get GOING. I can begin to put the work in now, towards whatever it may be. Drinking kept me down and I knew that, but the lesson is realising that sobriety won’t in itself pull me up – it will just allow for me building enough muscle to get myself out of the pit, but that is really a miracle in its own right to be honest. I suppose it’s called freedom.

Funny…. It’s been flickering around somewhere in the periphery, just little glimmers of what my book might be, but I see it more and more now. Perhaps my voice belongs with those others who account for a life wasted drinking and living once again in sobriety? Maybe that’s the book I am meant to write? I’m sure Alice will patiently wait, my main character whom despite drinking I’ve spent so much time, love and energy carefully crafting. She’ll understand. As long as John doesn’t go and die, he’s well into his 80s and I need him in the story. Hah. Enough.

Today I’m not going to drink.

A String of Gems and Hope

It really feels like the last week of summer, and I suppose it is. There has been a definite turn in the weather and now with the August Bank Holiday weekend and Notting Hill carnival behind us, autumn is right on the doorstep. This is fine by me – I love autumn. Over sized scarves and sweaters, dark evenings, candle light and hot drinks spiced with cinnamon. Hah! That last bit was interesting as I suppose I would normally have mentioned mulled wine and had to think for a second there about what I might be drinking this first sober autumn I have ahead of me. Well. There’s alcohol free mulled wine should I feel like it, but I suspect as with regular wine I won’t be interested in the alcohol free version. Yep, summer is over and it’s a grey Tuesday here in London with the temperature just nudging 20 degrees. No more tank tops and shorts – it’s back to long sleeves and jeans.

But what a summer! Actually – what a YEAR it’s been so far, and I still have my favourite season and Christmas to look forward to!

2018 started off the way my years normally do: with a severe hangover. Some years I’ve attempted a dry January (and to be fair, mostly managed just fine) but this year I didn’t even consider it. Monday 22nd January I called in sick because I was so hungover I couldn’t move. That evening I acknowledged I was in serious trouble and finally reached out to my husband and spelled it out: I AM AN ALCOHOLIC, I CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS AND I AM FRIGHTENED. 23rd January my decision was made – I knew I wanted and needed to get sober and sort my life out. And I’ve done my best. I’ve not done a perfect job but where I am compared with where I was going is a miracle. (Oh, I bloody HATE it when sober folk yap on about miracles but this is probably why. No two ways about it – the way I drank and the sheer quantities of wine I put away amounted to “suicidal drinking”. Yes, that’s a thing). So whilst the year did begin with monstrous drinking, I gave myself the best gift: sobriety and a shot at life again.

And 2018 has been a string of magical gems that I have been present for: Ronnie Scott’s, friends over from Sweden, Paris, Foo Fighters in Gothenburg, the Mighty Hike, Lipari, Sweden…. Pretty amazing. To just think I initially thought I’d enjoy life less without the chance to poison myself and actively working to shorten my life whilst hurting my loved ones in the process. Yes, it’s madness, it’s all fucking madness.

Yesterday hubby and I went for a walk around the park. I was tired due to the world’s most uncomfortable bed at a little hotel in the Chilterns where I took hubby for a little getaway. But off we went. We did both comment during our walk that we were walking faster than usual. Hubby had a sore back and hasn’t been allowed much exercise so the last time he came with me on a walk was back in July before our holidays. Normally it takes us one hour and 35-37 minutes, around the inner perimeter of the park which is exactly 10k. 1.31! Felt awesome! Walked fast enough to get a tiny bit breathless and sweaty. Must be the work of Dimples and getting back into running – I’m getting stronger! I must be! And make no mistake – I’m getting stronger because I am able to be the person I was always meant to be, and that person loves being active and feeling strong. I don’t know if I agree with Dimples when she says I “look strong” during the exercise sessions but I am absolutely starting to feel it. As it happens she is away for a week so no sessions until next week now, but I have contacted the gym and will be signing up this week so that by the time our last sessions are done I’ll seamlessly be working out solo too.

If you’d told me last year at this point that I would go on to enjoy all these things booze free and then sign up for the gym too, I’m not sure I would have believed you. I would have wanted it to be true, definitely, but I doubt I would have had the courage to actually believe it. Hopelessness in the face of alcoholism would have made it all seem so far fetched. Like a utopia, almost. And yet it isn’t. Perhaps I’m not free yet, perhaps I’ll never be fully free but I’ll happily settle for what I have now. My addiction has been forced into a cage and that’s amazing, but I’ll just have to accept that I can’t look away for too long because the cage has no lock. But I can live with that. If that’s as free as I can ever get, it’s still a win.

Progress, not perfection, as they say. But this IS perfection as far as I’m concerned. Every last minute that I’m sober is perfection.

Today I’m not going to drink.

A Self Centered Pity Party

Holy crap – welcome, folks, to Anxietyville! It’s not a fantastic place to be but is where I have spent much of the past three nights. I’m not letting it get the better of me, and besides, a good mood is my trigger rather than feeling on edge so perhaps I’m safer than ever?

My son has a complicated relationship with his father. I don’t want to go into detail because again I don’t want to put anyone in an awkward situation if this blog ever did wind up in front of people I’m actually writing about and so I want to keep it as anonymous as I can and disguise everyone as best I can, and ideally beyond recognition. At the very least, I don’t want to air anyone else’s dirty laundry, just my own. So, suffice to say it’s been a difficult year and a half during which my heart has ached for Bambino. It would seem they are now finding their way back to each other and whilst this is freaking amazing news, it also fills me with dread because it would take so little for it all to fall apart again. I don’t think my ex-husband would disagree if I do say openly here that I’m not his favourite person and he therefore refuses to speak to me. This is OK, of course, but does make things slightly tricky if we’re now approaching a situation where we are co-parenting again. So anyway, Bambino spent the night at his dad’s for the first time since January 2017 and they had planned quality time together Monday, after which Bambino was meant to come home. I got a text in the afternoon saying he was going to stay another couple of nights.

I really have to rein myself in – this is a good thing! A really GREAT thing, even. But his text had tinges of what didn’t sound like Bambino and I had a real battle on my hands staying calm and telling myself all was well. In the end he did call me and I was reassured he was fine and it was nothing at all like the sinister scenarios that my mind cooked up. Still. My 13-yearold sends brief text messages to inform me he’s not coming home. If he stays the night at a friend’s place I won’t allow him unless I am in touch with the adult(s) in charge. OK, it’s his father, but even so, this doesn’t sit well with me but I guess I just have to suck it up. He’s coming home today, or at least that’s what he told me yesterday, and I do hope this is the start of spending time regularly at his dad’s again. A fractured relationship with a parent can fuck us up endlessly and it’s the last thing I want for my son. Says the alcoholic. But you know what I mean. This is a real test for me and I am doing my very best to let it go, hold back and focus on what’s important here. This I am obviously much better placed to do sober (just imagine what pouring wine on this would be like) and any anxiety I feel is totally irrelevant. I think it’s true what they say in AA, how us alkies are incredibly self centred – Drunk Me certainly is – and this is a fine example of a situation where I have to give myself a slap across the face and grow some balls. This is not about me or how I feel. Not one bit.

Hubby is still away and this morning I really, really missed him when I had my morning coffee. This is our little morning ritual, see. Whoever’s getting in the shower first sticks it on, by the time we’ve both showered it’s brewed and ready and we have our little morning chat on the sofa. It’s not like it’s ever been a case of agreeing to do this, it’s just what we do and this morning when I sat there on my own in my empty home I really wished hubby could have been there.

OK, that’s enough now – I’ve had my pity party, so let’s move on!

I’m really keen to put my drinking to good use. I mean, it did me no good whatsoever, so it’d seem like a waste to have fought as hard as I did to drink for no reason. Yes, being an active alcoholic is really, really tough – I know I’ve said this a hundred times, but I can’t stress it enough – and I have nothing to show for it. What I do have is the gift of sobriety that I intend to hold on to with all I have, and I feel such a strong desire to reach out and help other alcoholics who are still suffering. I know there has to be a place for me there, that perhaps I can just reach that ONE person and show that I know what it’s like to be there but also that there’s a way out. This is something I need to pursue, whilst never losing sight of the work I will have to continue to do myself to remain sober and have the life that I want.

And life really is so amazing when I don’t poison myself. No black-outs that I have to figure out like a detective, no days wasted to crippling hangovers and no alcohol induced anxiety or low moods. Now I’m just my usual delightful hurricane of emotions but sober I can bloody deal with them. Please, never let me lose sight of this, never let me lose my grip.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Guerrilla Tactics

It’s a beautiful Monday morning and London seems to be going in to that seam between summer and autumn with a freshness to the air that feels so good after the humidity of the past months. Still humid and a little muggy and I sweated a freaking ocean on my run yesterday. When I say ‘run’ I refer to the total of 12 minutes I actually jogged. Have a 10k app that is supposed to get me up to speed again. Or not speed perhaps, just get me to a state where I can chug along 10k without having to stop jogging and walk. All in good time. But yes, a gloriously beautiful morning here.

You could say that where I am right now is like the scene from Jaws, think it’s the first one with that woman swimming along and you hear the ominous music that signals the approach of Sharkie-doo with the camera shot zooming in on her from deep in the water below:

1. Beautiful day.
2. I feel rested, content and happy.
3. Add feeling of additional physical wellness due to PT sessions and getting back into running.
4. I have tomorrow off – albeit standard August procedure, not my Drunkard’s Planning.
5. Hubby is at Heathrow about to board a flight to the States.

Oh yeah, I’m that chick in the water and Sharkie-doodle-doo is lurking in the depths below. Do I trust in strength I want to believe I have? Or do I ask for help? I didn’t fucking plan to develop alcoholism! If it had been part of the plan I wouldn’t have moved abroad, because right about now it would be really good to speak the following words:

1. Hey Mum, I’m OK so don’t worry, but today is a tight spot for me so I’m staying with you for a few days until hubby’s back. 
2. Dad! How’s it going? Let’s go moose spotting and don’t drop me home until after 11pm because I’ll never want to start drinking that late. 
3. Hi there brother D, I’m sorry to do this to you but I’m not home dry yet so I’m going to camp out in your spare room. Thanks. 
4. Cherokee, I feel a tad wobbly so would you mind babysitting me? Yep, I know, ridiculous but all I need is just your presence and we’ll have a nice time I promise.

Well. Those luxuries are far away and so I’ll just have to make do with the anchors I do have and I feel cautiously confident it’ll be fine. There are people I can reach out to here too should I need it, but it never hurts to have a plan and I do. Groceries arrive between 3 and 4pm (can’t be drunk). Window man is over at 5pm to measure everything up (can’t be bloody pissed for that, now can I?). Going for a 10k walk (not possible even with the THOUGHT of booze in my head because the only place I’ll walk then is the fucking store).

The heaviest anchor is Bambino, who is arriving back today after staying at his dad’s last night. I’ve been as open as I can with him and have explained everything except the A-word and just a couple of days ago I received a hug from him with the words “you’re doing well, Mum, I’m proud of you“. It was after I’d been for a gym session and walked back in, and I can promise you that he wasn’t referring to how many squats I’d done. My kid is over-joyed because I’ve quit drinking – if I then decide to take up knitting or train spotting he doesn’t give a honking hoot about. I don’t even think he’d care if I decided to join the circus so long as I’m sober. He might not spell it out but it was me quitting drinking that he meant and nothing else. In a way that makes me want to punch myself in the face. No 13-yearold should ever have to tell their goddamn parent they’re proud of them for not getting smashed on a daily basis anymore. But there we are, I can’t change any of that now, but what I can do is continue to show my boy that I want to be the best I can be and that I’m working hard at this. For all my failures and everything I’ve fucked up, this is my little chance to show him I can do and be better. Not even this rotten drunk would get drunk in front of Bambino now. Not behind his back either. Never again. For such a skinny little twig he is the heaviest anchor of them all.

I’ll be honest, there is no ping! in my head. I’ve felt like this every time hubby’s been away though. We talked about it last night, how I’ve felt a bit vulnerable each time he’s gone away with work but how it’s been fine in the end. Reality has never lived up to my worries beforehand. It rarely does, right? Perhaps it’s a good thing though, to worry like this? I’m going to see it that way I think, that it’s positive that I’m aware of the fact that this is really my weakest point – solitude and a good mood – and I’m just getting myself a little worked up but that the sense of vulnerability is actually serving me well. The Beast doesn’t fight fair, it’s all guerrilla and surprise tactics, but it’s always harder for it to get me when I’m anticipating an attack. The Beast would be much more likely to get me when I don’t expect it. See? I’ve got this.

I’ve been nervous before when hubby’s gone but when push has come to shove it’s actually been fine. That’s the thing with worrying. Like when I have to have a needle. It’s the size of Burj Khalifa in my head but then turns out it’s no big deal at all. Someone said that worrying is like a rocking chair: it’ll keep you occupied but won’t get you anywhere. Well, that makes worrying seem really pointless, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say that when it comes to alcoholism it’s actually another tool. OK, hopefully I’ll always discover that hey, I was fine in the end and any worry I felt was totally needless, but better that than getting ambushed by a monster that doesn’t play fair.

There’s one thing I’m really determined to get right, and again hubby and I spoke about it last night. As much as it’s OK to need those around you, I can’t bloody make my sobriety hang on other people. Hubby is my bestie and I have this whole army of amazing friends and a kick-ass family, but THIS IS MY FIGHT. They can come watch and they can cheer me on and even wipe my brow and hand me a bottle of water, but I can’t remove my gloves or flee from the ring if they leave the arena. I have to keep fighting even when the whole crowd is cheering on my opponent. Go Sauvignon Blanc! Finish her! Even then I have to fight. So me being sober today has to come from me. I have to focus on that I don’t want to drink and not worry because I’m flying solo for a few short days. No, I can’t go and stay at Mum’s, nor can I have a babysitter. I just have to pull on my big girl pants and show who’s boss.

Most of all, I’m reminding myself why I don’t want to drink. I’m forcing myself to in my head list positive things that drinking would bring – there aren’t any, only lots of bad shit. Nothing else.

I’ve got this.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Trolls and Sunlight

Hello, Wednesday. I’m trying my best to like you but the truth is I’ve always found you dull and you always seem to drag. Sorry.

Since our trip to Sweden I’ve had a little exchange with Cherokee. She’s my best friend and really the female version of hubby – makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? I told her so and she agreed that to be likened to my hubby is praise of the highest order. And yes, I’m so fortunate to have such awesome people as my sidekicks and cheerleaders, I think my journey would have been very different had I been surrounded by arseholes. I know of other people who do not enjoy the luxury of a rock solid support network like I do, and it frightens me to think where I’d be without that. Where I’d be if I were in a situation where those who are meant to love and support me actually didn’t just not support me but actually made it all harder. So I have the utmost respect for those friends who do all this having to swim against the current – that’s heroism on a fucking grand scale. Getting sober is hard enough even when friends and family have your back, you don’t need them stabbing you in it, let me tell ya. I’m very, very fortunate. And until we all are as fortunate as this, I am going to make it my mission to contribute to the conversation around alcoholism and addiction. I think the more we can bring it out into the light, the better a chance we all have to recover.

Cherokee put it so poetically that it actually pissed me off. Bloody HELL, does she HAVE to be so fucking fabulous at fucking everything? Writing is MY thing! And there she goes, penning a few lines that were so perfect I was seething with envy at her talent with words and at the same time admiring her massively for being so clever. She’s awesome. And I’d totally tell her if she had loo roll stuck to her shoe. That’s how much I love her – her many talents, her wit, her intelligence and her beauty only make me admire her. Envious, yes, and I’ve copied her since around 1989, but it’s – I’d like to think anyway – a good sort of envy. Seeing her succeed makes me genuinely happy. I think that’s a sign of when you’ve put someone on a pedestal for the right reasons, which I believe I have when I ponder the very tall ones I’ve placed hubby and Cherokee on. Two people I admire and look up to, yet feel secure and safe around because I know they love me just the way I am and therefore there is nothing I need to prove. I just get to be me. That’s kinda nice.

But anyway. What she wrote.

So we were discussing where I’m at and how I’m now in the midst of a tsunami of emotion following so many years of alcohol abuse and numbing everything I feel, and also about how to set boundaries and change our thought patterns. Cherokee gave me a little crash course in “the power of not giving a fuck” (there are some great books with titles roughly along those lines – I did read one called ‘Fuck It’ a long time ago and thoroughly recommend it, I’m going to dig it out and read it again now that I’m sober) and examples of her own baggage and how she’s learnt to give fewer fucks in some situations. We talked about Project P and my goal to let this go and set new boundaries, and that’s when Cherokee reminded me of the trolls. So she is Swedish like me and still lives where we both grew up, in a part of the world that’s dense with vast forests and where the folklore is crammed full with trolls and mystical beings of the woods. And so she likened issues and thinking we need to face and deal with to just that, trolls.

“You know what to do, don’t you?” Cherokee wrote, “You put the trolls right out in the sunlight because that makes them burst, and then when you’ve exposed them you might find they’re nothing but little grey stones that you can throw into the Thames.”

I quite literally couldn’t put it better myself and did read those lines wishing it was me who had written those words. I’d forgotten all about those stories about trolls and how you kill them. But perhaps it’s proof that I am not, after all, a troll myself because I spent a lot of time in the sun over our holidays and despite putting on weight that may have something to do with all those cannolis in Italy, I didn’t burst. I say this because Mum has always referred to me as her “troll baby“. Another myth found right there in the folklore. How the trolls sneak into your home at night and replace your human baby with one of their own. Can’t blame Mum though. I was three weeks early yet clocked in at a solid four kilos, was born on a Friday the 13th (no joke) and I also had a thick mop of long black hair that stood on end like a mohican. Hah! I named my best friend Cherokee but when I was brand new it was actually me who looked like a red indian. Anyway, I’d like to think Mum says it in an affectionate sort of way. Although…. She has different ringtones on her phone and the one she has for me is the sound of a dog barking.

Where were we? Seems we’ve dealt with praising hubby, reflected on the awesomeness of Cherokee and established that I’m probably not a troll because I withstood direct sunlight. Good.

I think I’ve mentioned this book before, but I will mention it again, as well as recommend it to anyone who wants to re-frame what alcohol means to them: ‘The Naked Mind‘. It’s really just a better written version of Allen Carr’s ‘The Easy Way to Stop Drinking‘ and absolutely fabulous. I read it a few months into my sobriety along with Carr’s book and they really did cement what I’d come to believe and feel when it comes to booze. 100% part of my tool kit. And what’s even more fabulous is that there is a website as well as a Facebook group you can join (I’ve joined both) and discuss and share with others in the same (or similar) boat along with giving each other support. These two books are important to me because they punch holes in a lot of the stuff we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking around alcohol and exposes booze for what it really is – a foul tasting poison.

Well, as with AA, I can’t say I blindly just go with Carr’s or the Naked’s philosophy but just like AA those form part of the perspective I am developing when it comes to drinking and my own experience. One doesn’t exclude the other. For example, these two books seem to advocate a view that is in direct odds with AA’s stance on what an alcoholic is and seem to suggest there is nothing that is different in or with the alcoholic, and here I lean much more towards AA’s view. I do honestly believe there IS something that sets us alcoholics apart, that there is some sort of fundamental reason why we react differently to alcohol than the non-alcoholic does. But again, this doesn’t matter and I will probably always continue to absorb all I can learn around alcoholism and addiction and nod when I agree and shake my head when I don’t.

OK, that’s enough for now. Sexy hubby, amazing Cherokee, trolls and books. That’s not so bad for boring Wednesday.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Artistry in New Orleans

Tuesday, YEAH! My arse and thighs are aching but I feel really good. Took a bit of an emotional bruising there…. Quit drinking and hopped right on to the Pink Cloud. Spent the first few months in absolute AWE at how good it felt to wake up hangover free and present in my own life. You know, even when I drank, I would have described myself as an emotional hurricane. My mother once said I have “an artist’s soul“. By that she meant that everything I feel, I feel very strongly. This has always been true, even when I was numbing myself with booze. So now that my emotions are crowding me and demanding I feel them all in their pure form, it’s been an interesting ride. To say I feel things strongly now is like saying Hurricane Katrina made it a bit windy in New Orleans. But I think I’m slowly getting there and almost every day there is a new discovery, a new clarity, a new answer. It’s all positive in that I believe it will all – so long as I don’t pick up a drink – lead me closer and closer to who I was always meant to be, allowing me to rid myself of fucked up thinking and untangling emotional knots here and there.

There are three part goals now. Or START goals, perhaps, is more accurate:

1. I want to get fit. I used to love running and I want to really give it a push and get fit for real. So I found myself one of those snazzy PTs, as apparently you refer to them, and had my first session yesterday. I’m going to see her twice a week for the next three or four and then once I know what I’m doing I’ll join the gym and continue on my own. Endorphins do lots of good and even though I have been doing lots of walking I think we can safely up the dosage here. I want to feel healthy and strong, and should I end up a bit more toned and even get a little slimmer that’d be a bonus.
2. There is something that I think has fucked me up more than other stuff. I’m going to call it Project P. It is unhealthy and pointless and I am done with it. So I’m figuring it all out – what exactly it is and where exactly it came from and then when this is all clear to me I need to let it go. Perhaps I’ll even have a little ceremony because I do think it warrants a symbolic gesture of some kind, like writing it on a balloon and releasing it. And then allow Project P a place in my life that is normal and healthy.
3. We all need – I think – to feel we’re valuable, even important, that what we do counts for something. The writing and jewellery making may not be the paths that will allow me to earn a living, or at least not right now, so my keep will need to be earned in a way that does at least make me feel I have a purpose. Even if that purpose is to ensure I made someone’s coffee the way they wanted it. I don’t know. But I need to make a change here and need to figure this out as I currently go into work feeling it’s all a bit pointless. It’s great for lots of reasons but it’s not the one for me, simple as that.

Being in Sweden was a bit of a catalyst, setting off feelings in me I perhaps didn’t expect and it got a bit overwhelming. Not lease because it was the first time going sober and navigating how to put it to my family – to say the A-word or not to say the A-word – and then digesting their reactions (all good) and what they had to say about it (also good, but thought provoking). Always a silver lining it’d seem, and it would appear it’s given me the kick up the backside I needed. There will be, I’m sure, tonnes of other issues I will have to dissect and deal with, but these three are a good starting point. If I can get a handle on these I think I’m well on my way.

In the meantime I continue to feel all these emotions just the way they are. OK, it does sometimes feel like I’m in a crowd consisting of tantrum-throwing toddlers and I’m struggling to get them to form an orderly queue so I can deal with them one by one, but I’m not shutting any of them down and I am sure as hell looking them all in the eye. Sometimes all at once because it would seem sobriety has provided me with a fully functioning spine. Or massive cojones. Well. I have an artist’s soul, don’t I? It’s pretty colourful around here.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Escaping Everest

Ah, and so back down to earth with a nice little thud – hello, Monday. I think being in Sweden rumbled me a lot more than I expected it to, so it’s good to be back. I sometimes forget that it’s the place where I grew up that creates a lot of sadness and pain in me and so each time I am there I’m a bit overwhelmed by it, it’s not a new Sober Me thing – it’s always been that way but perhaps it was more intense this time because I can fucking feel everything! I never saw moving away as escaping but perhaps that’s what I did and as much as I love it there, I need to keep a safe distance and it’s good to have the North Sea as a barrier sometimes. Regardless, I can shut it away in a box on the other side of that puddle or I deal with it and have it over with. I suspect the latter would be the healthier option. Being back in London does mean my emotions are still like live wires that fizz and crackle but being home means I’m slowly returning to a better balance. All in good time. That doesn’t mean I’m going to slow down, it just means I need to deal with one thing at a time and in the right order. Changes are coming, and I am changing. I have already changed so much by just being present and with the light back on. Alive, I suppose. Still, there is much to be done and I will just have to tackle each little mountain one by one. No Everest in there. Or perhaps one, but I have it all mapped out so I don’t think there’s anything about the climb that’ll catch me off guard and it’s always getting back down that’s much harder. The others nice and challenging in a good way, much like the Mighty Hike. Time to get on with it.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Jump, Capitano!

Something is happening, I can feel it. Oh God, can I feel it! My emotions are taking me places I can’t even explain, much less put into words but I’ll try. It’s like my heart and soul are trying to tell me something – Anna, it’s now! That this is the moment I fall forward, my eyes on the horizon and with my arms stretched wide as if I were a bird, from the platform 300ft above terra firma knowing the elastic rope secured to my ankles and waist will hold. By the way, just so we’re clear – I ain’t fucking doing THAT again! But it’s a little like that. That this is it. The moment my child drew his first breath and I first heard his fragile little cry. Or those tear jerking moments when long lost family are reunited on that sob fest on Channel 4 I’ve been watching. That’s the feeling that’s making my heart tremble and soul vibrate – I just don’t know what it all means but I’m going with it. I see stuff all around me, like the universe is putting clues out for me to see. An elderly man going down to sit by the seafront, taking his late wife’s framed photo with him and placing it next to him because that’s where they used to sit together. Stuff like that. Doses of love so overwhelming my heart trembles.

Had a long conversation with hubby last night. Got on to it quite randomly and although the chances of anyone in my family stumbling in here are slim, I’m not hiding plus I’ll probably end up handing out the web address to them too as and when and so I don’t want to go into detail. But there is something I need to let go of. Well, this is what step four is designed to help untangle and of course it’s part of mine along with much else, but I fully accredit sobriety for bringing me here and continuing to take me to new levels of clarity, insight and peace. It’s amazing. Sharing helps and I’m incredibly fortunate to have my best friend right by my side. No one can get sober for you, much less keep you that way but I also know I can’t do this alone and don’t have to – hubby, friends, now my family and of course AA together form my anchors. Hubby of course the most secure of them all, which is pretty damn impressive given he’s not an alcoholic – he’s doing a pretty awesome job of being my co-pilot. Or ship mate or whatever they’re called. He’s as bossy as I am, but on this particular ship I’m Il Capitano.

It’s freaking me out a little but as these emotions aren’t dark, it’s kind of in a good way. This thing, for example, that I need to let go of is part of this something-is-happening feeling. It’s like a revelation that might happen any minute, that’s a little how it feels. Like I’m about to find out the answer to something. Leap off. Begin something. Perhaps it’s all very simple and that I’m left happy and light because it’s all out there now, including for my family even though I avoided the A-word when speaking to my parents. They know anyway though – even if they’ve done their best to shut their eyes to the painful reality that their daughter is an alcoholic they can’t possibly have failed to know that. Anyway, maybe it’s that? Sobriety has so far been a pretty lovely journey (and by that I mean it hasn’t been a dark or difficult time – it hasn’t been all easy either but it certainly hasn’t been hell) but I was still holding back and was a little cautious in terms of who I shared it all with, but now I think the only thing I could do to reach the perimeter of people who know me, some of whom are barely in my life at all, would be to blast it all out on Facebook. Maybe one day, but not today – I don’t see the need. I guess I also prefer human contact these days and enjoy Facetoface more than Facebook. But I digress.

Something is happening. I’m ready. I just don’t know what it is exactly. Bear with me – remember I am feeling my emotions in their undiluted, unmodified and pure form for the first time in a long time, so I’m not fluent in the language of my heart and soul yet. I always had a knack for languages though, so I hope I’ll pick it up and I’ll try the method that’s worked for me in the past: total immersion.

Today I’m not going to drink.

Dirty Knickers

Once again, let’s go back to what we can do when we know someone we care about drinks too much….. As an alcoholic, this is a very interesting one for me and I have often wondered if there might have been something someone could have said or done to make me get to my turning point sooner. My instinctive and spontaneous answer is simple: nothing. Perhaps the truer answer, however, is that I still don’t know.

I had a conversation with one of my sisters-in-law, M. Instead of an initial, let’s give her a nickname for the purposes of this blog as we are close and chances are I’ll write about her again. Straighty! Oh, how apt! She is the most orderly, by-the-book person I know. A straight arrow and a straight shooter. Beyond this, she also has a better grip than your average non-alcoholic Joe on what alcoholism is due to her profession – this is particularly refreshing as it cuts out a whole catalogue of misconceptions and ignorance around what an alcoholic is. She gets a lot of it. So anyway, Straighty and I had a little exchange yesterday because I came away a little worried that I had dropped the A-bomb like that and might have caused my brother additional worry given he in that moment went from having a sister who drinks too much to having a sister who’s an alcoholic. I think the way I actually put it to them was “well, I’m a raging alcoholic, a full-on, pure bred drunkard“. I am nothing if not blunt. So I wanted to emphasise that me having come to understand and accept this, along with a genuine and sincere wish to stay sober, is good news and hopefully something my brother (and her, of course) can see as a positive thing.

Straighty did what Straighty does and told me straight.

“I don’t think your brother worries more. I think he feels it’s a good thing you’ve come to this point and you just confirmed what we’ve believed for some time now anyway.”

Well, that’s good and exactly what I wanted – remove some pain, worry and fear by showing that hey, I get it and I’m trying to turn it all around. It was a good exchange to have, albeit via e-mail. We only see each other for a few days twice a year and with us rushing around to see everyone and her a busy mother of four with at least one kid whining for her attention, the uninterrupted moments she and I get just the two of us are extremely rare. Straighty felt I shouldn’t bother trying to “save” anyone’s feelings when it comes to saying I’m an alcoholic. It’s the truth, so what? But for me it is 100% about that when it comes to my parents, saving their feelings. They live in a small town and they are of the generation and upbringing where one keeps one’s dirty laundry to oneself and having an alkie for a daughter would bring shame – lots of it. There is endless gossip, everyone’s in everyone else’s business and you can’t fucking fart without it being the talk of the town in that place, I swear. And that generation is also more worried about how it looks than how it feels, my father and stepdragon two fine examples of how all dirt should be brushed under the carpet. Out of sight. Let me clarify: in all likelihood they all know that I’m a drunk, but it’d be much worse to put a label on it and if other people knew.

I have no issue with saying I’m an alcoholic, much less with what others might think – after all, I’m not going to be more (or less) of an alcoholic just because people talk about it, right? To be fair, if I can get people to talk about it, it’d be my greatest achievement in life. And my sobriety is much more important than people’s opinions – besides, if I didn’t have my sobriety I’d have no life for anyone to have opinions about in the first place. So for me it’s irrelevant, plus I don’t live there so it wouldn’t affect me anyway.

But for my parents I figured it might just be too painful to hear so I told them the truth in a softer (but no less honest) way: I drink too much, I can’t stop when I start and it doesn’t do anything for me. Straighty made a good point though, a VERY good point:

“If you just tell everyone straight, then it becomes easier to understand and absorb, and no one has to wonder how far or how low. If you just say you’re an alcoholic, everyone will understand how serious it is.”

True. Can’t argue with that. But still it does bother me how it might be too tough for them to deal with. Having said that, I think just like with Straighty and my brother D, my parents (and everyone else who knows me) will already bloody know and perhaps it’ll be a relief for them as much as it is for me to just put those awful knickers out to air where everyone can see them. Perhaps there’ll be a moment to present the A-word, straight and clear but without it being a bomb. And after all, they can choose if they want to tell anyone or not. It’s not a secret. I’ve really been searching my soul if there is part of me holding back in front of them for any other reason than wanting to save them from hurt, and there genuinely isn’t a single one. And they are in a minority anyway, because I’ve told pretty much everyone without shying away from any detail. Unlike Straighty – as much as I do also agree she is right in a way – I do still worry about them having to hear that particular word. Straighty understands a whole lot more than most non-alkies and therefore she is easy to discuss it with, but sometimes she’s just a bit too… ….straight.

So anyway. The point here was back to my still unanswered (or unanswerable) question as to whether there would have been anything anyone could have said or done to make me quit sooner. So if we take Straighty and my brother D. She tells me they talked about it on numerous occasions and when I told them I’m an alcoholic it only confirmed what they had already known, or at least suspected, for quite a long time. Here’s the funny bit though…. Or not so funny. No, it’s funny. I think. At Christmas, just last Christmas, do you know what their present to me was? A bottle of Stoneleigh Sauvignon Blanc – my favourite, darling kind.

This is what I mean when I’ve pointed out how alcohol is the mother of all bitches to walk away from in terms of getting people around you to understand. Because not only is it considered normal, it is encouraged too, to consume ethanol as part of social occasions. And these are two people who strongly suspect or pretty much know that their sister/sister-in-law has a massive drinking problem, yet gives her a bottle of wine for Christmas. WOW. I’m not saying this is wrong of them, I’m pointing out how fucking mad it all is. Not them, IT! They loved me then, as they do now. Cared for me, as they do now. Worried about me, as they hopefully do a little less now. But isn’t that just absolutely crazy? Like giving a gram of heroine for Christmas to someone you love who you think might be a junkie. Would you?

I reiterate what I kind of think – that if you confront someone you love and tell them their drinking (or whatever other behaviour or drug or condition or what have you it might be) worries you, you are likely to be met with an angry reaction and the person with the possible problem shutting you out. So I’m not in any way saying they did anything wrong, I’m just saying it’s crazy. I think in an even crazier way, it made me less uncomfortable around them and perhaps therefore more likely to tell them straight when I was ready. Because I always knew I wasn’t any good at hiding it.

Anyway. There we are and do let me know your thoughts – there is no end to how much this fascinates me.

Today I’m not going to drink.