I sit writing this on an incredibly proud 218 days into my sober journey. My reason for starting this blog is to bring you a tale of two stories, one of my own and that of my best friends.
So, Let’s Begin with Me and my Sobriety!
If you met me and knew my drinking habits, you would probably consider me as someone who is sober curious. Yes, I can moderate, to a degree. I in all honesty do not believe that anyone after a couple of drinks can moderate and have found myself time and time again saying ‘oh go on one more won’t hurt’ then waking up with the hangover from hell. But in comparison to many others, I only tended to drink when I went out with friends, family or when I travelled. I never felt the need to drink at home unless I was particularly stressed.
For most of my life I’ve suffered with health issues, more specifically stomach problems and fibromyalgia which has created pain throughout my body. Probably like many of you I spent my 20’s and 30’s working hard through the week and stressing myself so much that at the weekend I had to destress by heading out with my friends and getting completely wasted. This obviously slowed down the further I got into my 30’s because of the unbearable hangovers and due to the fact that my body pain got worse and worse.
As with many of you out there, I too experienced that shame spiral the next morning. The usual voices in my head scolding me for my behaviour, immaturity, and the fear of wondering what I’d said to others. But it’s all part of being young, isn’t it? This is what people do on the weekends don’t they?
I grew up in a household where drinking was so normalised, I never really questioned it. Every social event came with alcohol, in fact every weekend required the relaxation of a tipple or two.
Add in the ladette culture of the 90’s, where we were brainwashed into believing that it was our right as feminists to compete with the lads and down copious amounts of beer. As a teenager I idolised celebrities who I believe had it all, the looks, clothes, and the incredible party lifestyle. How ironic that many of them are now sober.
My first experience of alcohol was always trying my parent’s drinks and I can clearly remember hating everything I tried. Because I wanted to be ‘grown up’ they would buy me alcohol free wine. I can remember a family friend asking me at around the age of 14 if I liked alcohol, and when I told her no she said ‘good, it’s better you don’t touch the stuff’.
So, the big question, how on earth did I end up getting wasted every weekend of my life? Simple, I found alcoholic drinks which were the sweetest and most sickly that I could bear, mainly WKD Irn Bru and Hooch.
Throughout my 30’s the pain in my body gradually got worse, so much so that I made huge lifestyle changes. I left my job for another less stressful one, went on a plant-based diet, took up a daily exercise routine and began wellness practices such as meditation and journalling. But alcohol was the one thing I struggled to stop; now think about that, I could give up my job, meat, eggs, and dairy, but not booze!
The thought of no longer having my friendly crutch would send me into a tailspin, even though I had a nagging feeling that quitting would help my health significantly.
My Best Friend’s Story
The other side to this story is that of my best friend of twenty years, who was the other half of my party duo. She was the kind of friend who could down three bottles of wine in a night, but still walk and talk normally at the end as if completely sober. Her tolerance had me in awe and when I asked her if she had suffered the next day I was always told ‘nah, I never get hangovers’. This meant she could drink the next day and keep the party going, whilst I lay in bed in pain hating the world.
When she reached her early 30’s my best friend began having issues with her eyesight. After many tests she was told that it was most likely alcohol related. She vehemently denied it and felt they were just fobbing her off, but she then began to suffer from paralysis in her legs, again refusing to believe it was associated with alcohol.
During this time, we had no idea as to the extend in which she drank. My assumption was that everyone drank as I did, a couple in the week and heavily at the weekend. When in fact it turns out she drank quite excessively on a daily basis. Her continued denial led to her being bed bound, pretty much blind and in excruciating agony all over her body, so much so it was too painful to touch or hug her.
She was a regular visitor to hospitals and on one occasion was admitted with a Homer Simpson yellow jaundice all over her body and eyes. She was so swollen that the doctors need to drain litres of fluid from her stomach, which again was another agonising procedure.
We noticed that whenever she was in hospital for a month or more that we saw an improvement in her health. Even on one occasion we picked her up from the hospital to bring her home and she walked to the car using a Zimmer frame, bearing in mind that she couldn’t walk when she was admitted.
When she returned home the drinking would begin again and she’d be admitted back into hospital. The circle repeated, until it didn’t.
In the Spring of 2022, she went into hospital which was her third time that year alone and sadly never came home. She had been delirious over the weekend and was found passed out on the Sunday and couldn’t be woken.
We stayed at her bedside until she passed away on the Wednesday, with her death certificate labelling her as an alcoholic. A label that hurt me to the core because I knew she was so much more than an alcoholic.
The After Effects of Her Death
With such a huge loss of someone in their 40’s it can be incredibly emotionally draining. So, what did I do after I left her body in the hospital, yes you guessed it, I got absolutely wasted. The shame the next day was unbearable, how could I have got so drunk on the poison which had just killed my best friend. Sadly, from my teens it was the only way I knew how to deal with emotions and numb the pain which consumed me. Something began to bubble in my brain, I had a realisation that alcohol wasn’t the friend I had always thought it was.
For just over a month after her loss I continued with life, even though she was always at the forefront of my mind and consuming most of my conversations. During that time so much happened in my life, but it always involved some form of drinking alcohol. I travelled and drank, socialised and drank, visited family and guess what? Yep, I drank. But there was a different feeling to it now, because with every drink there was an enormous sense of guilt. I was told she would want me to drink, but that guilt chipped away at me every time I woke up with a fuzzy head and aggressively worse body pain.
The Day It All Changed?
This leads me back to 219 days ago, which was my final day of drinking.
Now I cannot tell you that my story is alike many others in the sober community. That I hit rock bottom and smashed a car, or my friends and family rejected me. There was never anything like that in my story, because I would be classed as your everyday drinker. But you need to understand that even those average everyday drinkers are sat there feeling the same amount of shame and questioning why they repeatedly do this to themselves. I have questioned over the last few years as to whether quitting booze for 12 months would make my pain go away or at least diminish it. But then I’d go out and keep drinking, wake up feeling like hell and the shame spiral would go on and on.
So, what made me decide enough was enough?
My last day as a ‘drinker’ was in June 2022 attending a Queen gig in London. Again, I’m a moderate drinker so I only had 3 glasses of wine, but I had just been on holiday the two weeks before it and pretty much drank every day.
I was merry and happy during the gig, but then came the next morning. I woke up in agony all over and nothing would get rid of it, but to make matters worse I had to travel home which meant sitting in a car for five hours as my husband drove. That day became the day I decided enough was enough, no more alcohol, and I am grateful for every second of pain that I felt.
My Blog into My Sober Journey
I know there are lots of blogs into sobriety and many of them wildly more interesting than mine. But this is my opportunity to firstly remember the loss of my beautiful best friend and secondly explore where this road takes me.
I haven’t touched alcohol since June 2022 and I cannot pretend it has been an easy journey. I have had tears, tantrum, blind panic, cravings, and a feeling of rejection from some friends and family. But likewise, I have felt all of those euphoric emotions that appear when you’re not numbing everything with booze. The excited nerves of meeting new people and trying out new experiences. The delight of retelling stories and reminiscing over happy memories from a night out or an event, which you can actually remember.
Wine bitch as I prefer to call her is a regular visitor in my head, so I visualise punching her really hard in the face when she appears to try and convince me that ‘one drink is fine’.
My solace is the sober community, who have welcomed me with open arms and are the reason I am here still sober. I regret so much with my best friend; I told her she was an alcoholic, asked her why she didn’t stop for her kids and tried to scare her over the thought of dying. I now know none of that would have worked and she ultimately had to make the decision to stop.
I truly believe that the majority of her drinking was due to loneliness, because she and I had no idea that the sober community existed. If she had known about the amazing groups such as Flamingo AF, I think things would have ended differently for her.
I am not a medical or mental health professional and as such anything on my blog is purely to offer support to someone who may be struggling and to share my feelings, thoughts, and experiences. It’s important that if you want to quit the booze that you get professional medical advice.
I can tell you that it does get easier, and building up a group or community of sober friends will help you through. The more love and support you get from those who understand, the less likely you are to drink.
Then educate yourself, mainly so that you can tell the irritating voice in your head, the reasons why you don’t want to drink. My advice would be to read quit literature and listen to the podcasts, but I’ve given you more guidance in my ‘New to Sobriety Checklist and Tips.’
The most important thing to remember is to be kind to yourself! At the end of the day, you’re dealing with a drug and doing something that many people don’t, and that makes us bad asses!