First Step towards a New Life: Quit Drinking

Friday 26th February, 2021

I woke this morning with a dull headache, a sense of nausea and an overwhelming feeling of deep shame. Once again, I reset my quit drinking app. This time it’ll be different, I told myself firmly. But I don’t even believe my own lies anymore.

The truth is though, I want it to be different. I want to be a writer. I want to write blog articles and novels and share my thoughts and passions, be unashamedly and authentically me. I’ve been blocked for a long time, telling myself it’s a pipe dream, that I am not good enough, that I don’t have the time, that no one would want to read about anything I write, that I will be judged for the topics I choose to write about. You name it, I have probably thought it. But after the death last year of a very close friend, I have been forced to acknowledge that life is entirely too short and that I can choose between sitting around dreaming of being a writer or I can go out there and be one.

Renewed dreams

I’m writing a novel at the moment. Actually, I wrote it back in 2012. It was originally a fanfiction and got some good reviews. I re-read it a couple of months ago and realized that I was really enjoying it and looking forward to reading each new chapter. So, I decided to change the characters and re-write and edit it, with view to self-publishing at some point. So far, I have already edited fifteen of the forty-three chapters and I’m enjoying the process very much.

Last night, I finished work an hour earlier than usual. I remember feeling excited earlier in the day, thinking I could probably edit a chapter before going online to watch a live video discussion by a couple of life coaches that I admire. However, what I ended up doing was finishing work and cracking open a bottle of wine. Needless to say, I didn’t get around to editing anything. Self-sabotage at its finest.

Fast forward to this morning and there I was back to resetting the date and time on my drinking app again, feeling frustrated and disappointed in myself.

Facing the truth

Then this morning something occurred to me, which never has before. I have a problem with alcohol. It’s not an easy thing to admit, but it’s time I throw my hands up, admit the truth and face the shame, head on. Cutting down or temporarily quitting for a few weeks or months just isn’t going to work for me. If I am going to live the life I really want to live, then I need to quit permanently.

It was a shocking revelation. Questions immediately bombarded me. Am I an alcoholic? Do I need to join AA? How much of a sacrifice will it be to quit drinking? Will I be able to do this? Am I a weak person? Am I an addict? Does being one make me a lesser person? Can’t I learn to just have one or two drinks on occasion like other “sensible drinkers”? Why do I really drink in the first place? Is it related to my childhood trauma? Will I cope with life without it? Is there something wrong with me? Am I broken?

A little lost and feeling like I needed solutions and fast, I wandered onto You Tube and searched for videos on quitting alcohol.

Something drew me to one in particular. It wasn’t professionally produced, there was no psychologist with a doctorate and decades of experience in beating addiction. It was a youngish man who stumbled as he spoke, scrawling on a white board, obviously thinking on his feet, giving advice that was like nothing I’d ever heard before. But his sheer honesty and authenticity drew me in. “Quitting alcohol is easy,” he said with a huge smile on his face. You are NOT an alcoholic and there is nothing wrong with you. You`ve just been conditioned to believe the lies society would have you believe.

The inescapable facts

Alcohol is a drug. It is addictive and most people will end up wanting more and more, not because they are weak, but because that is the nature of any drug. It doesn’t matter what race, gender, sexuality, nationality, or level of society you are. Anyone could end up struggling with Alcohol Use Disorder. It isn’t really surprising or unusual if you struggle to manage an addictive substance that society tolerates, celebrates and even actively encourages.

There are so many perpetuated myths around alcohol: It helps you to relax, it gives you confidence, it makes you feel less anxious, it lowers your inhibitions, it makes you more sociable, you need to build up a tolerance etc. These are the things I personally bought into. But for me, it was also a way to numb painful feelings and cope with social situations in which without alcohol I felt impossibly introverted and shy. The idea of quitting has always filled me with fear. How would I cope with the stresses of life, a hard day at work, the death of a friend, an argument, a disappointment? Would life without alcohol mean saying goodbye to any resemblance of a social life, losing friends and never having fun again?

New Perspective

The idea of a life without alcohol had never truly occurred to me. My previous goals were only ever to cut down, to learn to drink much more moderately, to limit my drinking only to social occasions or celebrations. No wonder I could never quit for long. My whole approach was one of “depriving” myself of alcohol just enough so that I could pretend that I didn’t have a problem and was somehow in control. The truth is I am not and never was.

I don’t want to drink alcohol anymore and for so many reasons: It damages my health, makes me put on weight, hides my true authentic self, leads to me acting like an idiot on occasion and doing things I would never normally do. It also costs an awful lot of money and time and I absolutely hate feeling hungover, wasting a day to recover and feeling the shame and anxiety of the morning after. So, I am taking control now and making a decision.

Today is the day. I quit drinking for good.