I’ve always had strong willpower from giving up smoking to sturdy resilience, generally, in my teaching career.
And yet – alcohol was one thing I couldn’t kick and have used almost every day since a young age. It got to new heights (or depths) of drinking from about 2012 when a school environment made me particularly ill and I ended up signed off with stress, anxiety and depression.
It’s tempting to drink copious amounts when you’re signed off and have nothing of note to do every day. Drinking became a daily habit – not one glass of wine, but often a bottle or two, along with spirits and cider etc.
Now don’t get me wrong – I didn’t lace coffee or cornflakes with gin first thing, but at 4 or 5pm every single day, I hit the booze relentlessly.
Counselling made me see the “big picture” and I was told to carry on drinking, without judgment, until the pain of trauma had eased. Sonya didn’t hand me a bottle, metaphorically, but she didn’t say “stop now, you’re an alcoholic.”
I drank then, heavily, from 2012 to 2016 and the psychological and physical impacts were massive.
When drunk, I’d rake over the past of workplace bullying, rage against the parties who’d colluded against me at a secondary school and church primary school. Sleep would be punctuated with anger, remorse and recriminatory thoughts and, it’s only when I stopped drinking, that the past was reconciled. I wouldn’t say I forgave those people, but I accepted teaching was over for good for me at 49 years of age.
In 2015, I set up this business and really had no excuse to carry on abusing alcohol, neglecting friends and family for that addiction.
A year later, my long-suffering wife Tricia told me in no uncertain terms, that the marriage would end if I didn’t stop drinking for good. An appointment was made for me at the doctor’s with her, and I had to watch her cry from a haze of gin and tonic the night before. I stopped that day. I also went to AA, and felt some spiritual intervention, even though I looked at the 12 steps in that blue book once that night and never opened it since.
Amazingly, perhaps, I’ve not transgressed once. I’ve not had any alcohol for five years. I’m proud of that.
What fills me with more pride though is the effect it’s had on family relationships and this web design and copywriting business.
By family, I must add I mean my wife and children, not parents and siblings who I’m estranged from. My drinking was, looking back, embarrassing. Shovelling processed crap in my mouth, like crisps, when drunk, and my children looking at me aghast at what booze did to me. I wasn’t violent or anything, just a selfish lush who only had eyes for the next drink.
It killed social life too effectively. Piss ups with friends became a part of those Facebook memories.
But it stopped me looking back in anger and left me free to focus on a new career and new beginnings, whilst sober, with the family.
I won’t ever drink again, trust me and I hope, next year, 19th December 2022, I won’t feel a compulsion to write about it or mark its anniversary.
Becoming teetotal is probably one of the wisest decisions I’ve ever made.
Being permanently sober clears night demons, gives you freedom to drive and do what you want, but above all, it made me focus on what really matters – family; my wife, son and daughter. I was a selfish drunken boor at my nadir, but now, without the blinkers of booze, I eat better, live better and have a much more loving relationship with my tight family unit.
Once you get over about a couple of months of not drinking, you don’t look back. Well I didn’t. If you’ve got an addiction to alcohol, seek support and bin the fucking stuff.
Honestly, being sober is a game changer.
Try it.
Oh and call to action – if you want a sober blogger, web designer or someone to manage your social media feeds, give me a shout. I’m great at all three – and modest with it too!
