Achievement and Loss- The 7 week Mark

Seven weeks and my overriding feeling is not one of achievement but one of loss. Why is that?My head says well done but my heart says at what a cost.  Our minds can play funny games with us and mine is currently playing the ,”Your drinking wasn’t that bad Jim, lighten up and enjoy yourself,” game.  Very seductive.  Very appealing.  Very half true!

In some ways this “thing”, this going sober, would be much easier if my drinking had been truly out of control and I was waking up trembling in the morning craving my first litre of  super strength lager. But it was never like that.  The drinking wasn’t ruining my life but it was nibbling at the edges and being a person of some excesses, when I drank, I drank with gusto. I nowfind myself remembering the many ocassions I did drink moderately (usually because it would have looked unseemly to do otherwise) but conveniently repressing days when I’d inexplicably reach for yet another drink, spending a day alone getting into a drunken stupor and then feeling shit about myself for around 3 days.  I conveniently forget  the hangovers that stopped me doing my Saturday morning runs or led me to spend a day eating fatty foods to soak up the booze. Well I’ve just reminded myself . Yes, of course there were good, sensible, rational reasons for stopping.  Health, sleep, energy, but boy can good intentions be boring.

This is the thing, despite my ego and superego (apologies to Freud) acting like some sensible parents, my instinctual, childish ID says, “Fuck off you boring killjoys, being human is about experience, we are all going to die anyway, let’s at least have some good times before the inevitable annialation!” Naughty ID! A bit of a drama queen but I get his point.  I do miss much about drinking.  I know the facts.  I know the science but stopping drinking is more than feeding yourself the sobriety propaganda. That gives you some reason and motivation.  It helps.  But I have to recognise and grieve for what I have lost as crazy as that may sound.  Drink gave me some release.  It was a drug I chose to take because I liked its effects.  It also gave me companionship and an identity. I was bloody good at drinking so it gave me a strange kind of warped kudos and standing.   Of course there were negatives and side effects but those were understood to be part of the deal. You pays yer price.

So what am I saying? God knows. I’m suggesting I suppose that like many things, going sober is not as black and white (for me and I can obviously only talk about me with any certainty) as I thought it would be.  It’s clearly a process.  There are real pluses and I’m grateful for those otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.  But I have to acknowledge the downsides and probably the biggest of these is the loss of identity, ritual, and shared activity that drinking gave me.

An example of this is when I eventually go to Spain to visit relatives.  I need to visit but I put if off. Why? Because I know that something will be missing. They live in Valencia and a typical day will involve late breakfast, a trip to the centre, beers, chat, meeting friends and tapas. Not much beer or wine but steady, small amounts. A light, sweet feeling of mild intoxication and then a restaurant where good food matched with fine wines is the order of the day. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, or I say to myself, spending a day like that with a non alcoholic beer or soft drink is not going to be the same.  That experience is now dead to me, it’s something that happened in another life.  It was good and it has gone.

Seven weeks.  I have done well and I have no intention of giving up my giving up, but I must also grieve and reorganise my identity. I need to find new ways of getting the comfort and buzz, that not just alcohol, but it’s associated rituals and hinterland gave me.  Maybe it’s the grieving rather than a physical dependency that makes many return to booze. Maybe knowing that that is what is going on and giving myself time will help. There was much that was good about my drinking days. Acknowledge the loss, feel the loss, grieve for it and move on. Better days await.

Apologies if this is a depressing post but these reflections have been swirling around and it helps to write them down.

Jim x

Ambivalence (Trigger Alert!)

Ambivalence; mixed feelings, contradictory views- yup that’s me right now. So i’ve been 5 weeks alcohol free and part of me feels, “great achievement” and part of me thinks, “big deal.”  Yes 5 weeks AF and I’ve had lots of benefits; no hangovers, marginally better sleep, lower blood pressure, bit of weight loss, blah, blah, blah. Another part of me misses what I’ve given up – the bonhomie of drinking, the getting slightly squiffy and the sheer delight of sampling new beers often in cosy, covivial surroundings.

Life is often not black and white and so it is proving with this alcohol free journey. I went to visit my son and his girlfriend at the weekend.  They have moved to St Albans.  My son, not knowing I’m not drinking bought some of my favourite beers and some corking wines to go with some stonking cheeses.  This used to be my heaven. I tell him I’m not drinking.  We head off to the town centre and the pub for some food and a drink.  I order AF beer. They have real beer.  I feel terrible.  Why am I denying myself? I always used to love that first hit of alcohol. Now I sit there thinking about not drinking just like before I used to think about drinking.  Brilliant, we’ve really moved on haven’t we!

Tangent. ‘This Naked Mind.’  Seemingly the bible for the newly sober, amen. I read this and bristled at some of her arguments.  I get the idea, turn people off alcohol, it’s easier to give up.  Her argument about taste though really annoyed me.  She says that alcohol is ethanol, true, and that drinking it is like drinking poison, true, and that we may learn to aquire the taste but really we don’t like the taste of alcohol, untrue. Alcoholic drinks are not just alcohol. They are often complex drinks and alcohol carries taste. Try AF wine next to real wine and there’s no comparison.  The alcohol carries the depth and range of flavours.  Good wine tastes lovely! For me denying that wine can be tasty doesn’t help one bit.  In fact it puts me off ‘sober propaganda.’ I know alcohol is not good for you in excess but you can say that about many things that give us pleasure. I like the taste of wine and a well crafted beer.  I like the feeling of getting slightly squiffy.  Let’s cut to the chase- people drink because it’s pleasurable. There, I’ve said it. Apostasy. Sacrilege.  Jim’s gone to the dark side!

No, I’m just reminding myself that I have given up something that at various points gave me much pleasure.  My problem, and it is MY problem, is that I am an excessive person and you play the excess card with alcohol and you are heading for trouble.  I know this weekend that had I been drinking, a couple of pints during the day would then have transformed into several beers later on then gin and tonic and once the wine was opened… hello hangover and a ruined Sunday. That is why I am not drinking but I wish I could be a moderate drinker. Ambivalence!

So what stopped me drinking this weekend? I was seconds away from cracking.  I wanted the companionship and lightheadedness, the pleasure of drinking in company. But I didn’t drink. I thought of two fellow bloggers in particular, Anne and Nadine, of how they are peservering and how much the mutual support means to me.  I reminded myself of why I had embarked on this journey in the first place and I also knew deep down that I’d be really annoyed with myself if I cracked. I want to see how I feel about alcohol in 3 or 4 months.  It may well be I get to a point where weekends like this one just gone do not feel like massive feats of denial.  Life is for living and I want to savour it’s many pleasures, but I also want to be healthy and there is much I want to accomplish in the time I have left.

So, I’ll continue, not in the bubbly, naive, trumpet blowing way I started out, but in a more realistic way.  Life is often contradictory, our own thoughts and actions likewise, but there can also be moments of clarity, calm and certainty.  My hope is that after wading through the swampy mire of ambivalence I’ll end up on firmer ground.

Maybe. One day.

 

Jim x

A little bit of blogging does you good!

Yesterday was a funny day. Funny strange that is. Let’s backtrack; I’ve been writing my blog for a month now and my intentions were to:

1 Have an online record of moving from alcohol dependency to sobriety, reflecting and hopefully learning on the way

2 Get a bit of support from people either going through the same thing or having successfully arrived at sober living

I’m really pleased to say that both of those goals have been realised but the experience I have had after one month has been so much more than that and very surprising.

Surpise number 1: the flow of comments and interest. I had blogged previously about trying to moderate my drinking. That was two years ago and in the course of blogging I had a few people who commented and I did the same. Only a small number but really useful. For me blogging wasn’t about getting lots of followers but an attempt to become part of a close knit small group of supportive bloggers. That’s how it was until yesterday. Then out of seemingly nowhere I had triple the views I normally have, a bunch of new followers and lots of comments. That was kind of nice but why yesterday? Was it that I suddenly appealed to more people due to my elegant writing, the opening up of my tortured soul, familiarity with my posts and a desire to read them all over again? No, of course not. I think it was down to one word: anxiety. That word being in the title of my last post and a tag seems to have been the reason for a lot more traffic. A surprise certainly, but a nice one, it just means you send you’re day responding to comments. A good way to spend some time.

Let me clear something up about that last post. The anxiety I was talking about was a situation specific, time limited anxiety. It was linked to me not allowing myself to drink at a time when I habitually drank. I didn’t like it. It put me on edge. It triggered some other darker feelings. But it passed. Real anxiety, clinical anxiety is a whole different phenomena and in no way did I want to suggest that’s what I was going through. I’ve seen people with chronic anxiety and it is a debilitating condition that can wreck lives. What I experienced was an episode, an acute short lived experience of anxiety that I overcame. The comments I had were amazing and an eye opener about what others have had to endure and suffer from.

Surprise number 2: The amazingly supportive community of bloggers out there. This has been the real revelation for me. In just over a month I have had numerous comments and ALL of them have been supportive, encouraging and positive. When people talk about online worlds and social media you often hear of bullying, trolls and negative responses. I’ve seen none of that. And it’s not just on my blog. When I read other blogs and comments it’s the same and that is a really wonderful thing to witness. It’s a picture of how this world could be if we truly valued and respected each other. Bloggers do it so why not politicians, religious leaders and others in positions of influence?

For me I would go so far as to say that the support and genuine interest of a few bloggers has helped me successfully manage my first 10 days of sobriety. It’s the quality of the support that’s really impressed me. It’s been much more than “10 days, well done Jim” type of response although that is always welcome. It’s been people sharing their own experiences to help shed light on mine or to offer advice and information that could be the thing that gets me through a sticky patch. Sometimes the comments can be very direct but that’s ok, I like direct and I can choose to act upon or not any advice coming my way. The point is in this blogging community people genuinely care for one another and want to see others moving forward and succeeding. No bitchiness or point scoring. They’ll be one or two just looking to pick up likes and followers but that’s ok. They still give. Oh and there are some big egos out there but hey that’s also ok. If a blogger feels a bit better about themselves that’s a good thing and it could be one of the few places they receive such positivity.

Is it all positive, this blogging business?

I would say the only negatives I can see for myself are:

A. It can be addictive. I’ve heard others mention that and I say this half jokingly because an addiction that does no harm physically and where the outcome is to connect with others in a positive way is hardly a bad thing

B. I have to be careful here. Maybe, just maybe we are too nice to each other. What I mean is that in trying to be supportive we sometimes sugar coat things or avoid any constructive criticism. You can be critical and supportive at the same time. I was a teacher for many years and just giving glowing feedback did not help students make progress. Purposeful, relevant feedback did. Having said that I know I’m now going to get some critical feedback of my own. That’s OK I can take it, just be gentle with me ! 😉

Jim X

Anxious about my Anxiety

Tell me about it Munchy…

When I decided to give up the booze it was mainly about wanting to improve my health. I wasn’t the stereotypical down and out drunk. I was someone who found it difficult, when I did drink, to drink moderately and I was fed up with the constant battle. I’d tried a three month no alcohol challenge, saw the numerous benefits and gradually came to the conclusion that the drink had to go. Not an easy decision; I was going to be giving up a lot but the pros of giving up outweighed the cons. Now, after a week of sobriety some unsettling thoughts and feelings are starting to emerge. It’s getting uncomfortable. I’m getting anxious.

It started on Friday when I started to get what felt like cravings and I wrote about this on my blog. Saturday and Sunday were the same and I realised the cravings were being fed not so much by a physical need for alcohol but by a desire to quieten down some of the uncomftable feelings welling up inside me.

One of the most pervading feelings was one of anxiety, a sense of unease, edginess. I know some will say that’s part of the withdrawal from alcohol but it’s a feeling I used to have even when drinking regularly. This was not addiction speaking, it was dissatisfaction and ennui. Saturday I prepared a meal, but there was no fun or joy in it. I cooked, we ate, watched TV, slept. Great, is that it? At least with a glass of wine I’d get a reprieve from those feelings. It made me relaxed, I could look at life and smile, pretend and believe that life was OK. Take the drink away and it all looks a bit bleak. I even had the fleeting thought that,”if this is what life is going to be like, get back to drinking, at least you’ll enjoy parts of the ride.”

I know, I know, this is all part of the sober journey. Dealing with the difficult stuff. For me though the difficult stuff is facing up to the fact that there is not enough happening in my life. It’s also maybe the recognition that without the booze I have to confront the fact that I find intimacy difficult. Spending time being with someone, anyone, without the mask of alcohol just brings on these waves of anxiety.

I think I said earlier in this blog that I haven’t gone too deeply into the origins of my drinking behaviour, the whys and wherefore of my drinking because that’s the past and I wanted to focus on changing the present but this last weekend in particular highlights that I do need to understand why I maintained my drinking habits. Without understanding that and finding alternatives I know that I may be drawn back to alcohol as a way of just dealing with shitty feelings.

The anxiety I felt this weekend was part craving but for the most part it was borne of seeing my current life in the full white glare of sobriety. Stuck in a village, trying to be a loyal, loving partner, tinkering on the edges of life, somehow strangely lonely and isolated. Boy, no wonder I drank! But I’m not drinking and I don’t intend starting again so something has to give or change. I can’t spend weekends like this last one, feeling anxious and disattisfied. A silent, shuffling presence just wanting to be on my own. On top of that waves of feelings of loss come back. My marriage to the mother of my sons 15 years ago, the death of a best friend last year, losing my brother, son and father in the space of three grim years 10 years ago. This is not self pity, everyone has to deal with loss, but alcohol can sometimes can just take the edge of it. And maybe, just maybe I never gave myself the time and space to grieve fully.

This blog has helped. Externalising the thoughts and feelings by writing. Getting feedback and support and being able to offer it sometimes. There does emerge a real sense of community when you blog, a knowledge that you do not have to deal with things alone. Of course some things do need to be dealt with internally and alone and maybe I have put those off for too long. I am someone with enthusiasm for life, who likes to laugh and that’s the fella I need to rediscover. Yes, without booze I may get a bit anxious, feel that life lacks something, but I should also, without booze, be in a much better position to do something about it.

Jim X

Newsflash – Angry Al Hacks Jim’s Blog!

Hello blog tarts or whatever you readers of blogs call yourself. I’m bloody angry. That Jim, he’s a bastard and a coward. I knew he would make off as soon as I came round. What a shifty two faced shit bag he is. This is his blog I suppose? “Life Beyond Booze” indeed. What a joke. The man has lost all sense and reason, and, he’s a snivelling traitor I’ll tell you that. You know he didn’t even have the courage to tell me face to face that our friendship was over. I heard about it on another “blog.” 45 years I’ve known Jim, stood by him, been with him through thick and thin and this is how he treats me, discarded like, well like an old beer can. That’s not how you treat your friends is it?

I’ll tell you something else, Jim won’t last 10 minutes without me. Nope. In fact he’s nothing without me and wouldn’t be the man he is today without my guiding influence. For one thing I reckon he’d still be a virgin but for me. I remember him as a shy, insecure nerd incapable of getting off with girls. Once I came along he’s suddenly Mr, “Hello there what’s your name,”rubbish lines, but said with a conviction and confidence. He actually got laid unbelievably but only because of me.

Maybe my new advertising campaign?

And I suppose he’s forgotten all the good times we had together. mad nights singing in the streets, telling rude jokes at fancy dinner parties, dancing as though he was a chicken on steroids. All down to me. Now he’s suddenly come over all self righteous and thinks he is going to improve his life and his health. What a joke. With me people laugh more, relax more, enjoy life more. That’s got to help people lead a longer life hasn’t it? What could be better for your health than gallons of wine. I tell you I am a gift from God, I’m loved around the world, you’ll see me on every street corner so why on earth would he throw all that away.

I blame you lot out there. Yes you, you smug bloggers, putting foolish ideas into Jim’s head. He’s going to end up throwing away the best friend he’s ever had. Girls have come and gone, friends have moved away , some have died. The only real constant in his life has beenme and now he wants to throw it all away. You’ve twisted his thinking. Well I hope you lot are happy separating a man from his best friend.

You know what though? I’m not going to go away. I know Jim must have been led astray. There’s no way he would suddenly reject me after all these years without someone, and yes, I mean you again, influencing, nay brainwashing him. Sober = Boring and Jim is going to find that out. I’ll stick around. I am calming down a bit now. I’ll stay on the sidelines, I won’t say anything but I’ll be there, always just in sight. he won’t be able to avoid me, always hovering with my tempting array of wines, beers and spirits. Eventually he will come to his senses, he won’t be the first to try and life without me and he won’t be the last. I’ll just bide my time and when the moment is right, I’ll plonk myself right at his side and offer him the comfort and pleasure that only I can provide. Then you lot will see who’s boss.

Yes, that’s it, I didn’t need to get so agitated. I’ll let Jim get this sobriety nonsense out of his system and he will come running back to me begging for forgiveness. You wait and see. If you see Jim, you can tell him I popped by. If you don’t no worries, I’m pretty sure he’ll be knocking on my door pretty soon anyway.

Cheers and salut

Al Cahole

(The man to see for some deadly serious fun!)

Alcohol is not the problem- I am

Well let me qualify that attention seeking title. Of course alcohol is a powerful, addictive psychoactive drug that can play havoc with minds and bodies and cause numerous problems for individuals and societies; but, if alcohol by itself was the problem, everyone who drank alcohol would be a problem drinker and that is again clearly not the case.

FINDING YOUR PLACE ON THE CONTINUUM

like most things, alcohol use and abuse is on a continuum. Obvious I know, but for me, I need to remind myself of that. I have enjoyed alcohol for many years and I’m already missing the thought of it three weeks before giving up. I am giving up because I’m rubbish at moderation and its impact on me means its time to choose- carry on with the alcohol with the negative impact it now has and risk early death and impaired living or give it up together and face the inevitable struggles and changes that go with abandoning a massively entrenched pattern of behaviour.

I’m recluctantly going for the second option. I say reluctantly because I would love to be able to be like my partner- a moderate, take it or leave it drinker. She can have a small glass of cider one day and then happily have no alcohol for weeks or months. She can enjoy A glass of wine and leave it there. I can’t. I have the cider, then want another, then maybe some wine and on and on it goes. I don’t get overly smashed because I have built up tolerance. I’m not at rock bottom,I don’t get aggressive but I know I can never be a moderate drinker. I have drunk heavily since college days, reining it in sometimes for work and family but drinking heavily to the point where I know it’s now doing me harm.

I’ve chosen to drink heavily over the years and the result is that I have lost the ability to control it when I do drink or I spend massive amounts of energy trying to control it in such a way that I do not enjoy myself. So there we have it, my partner and many friends are at the sensible end of the alcohol use spectrum and I’m going towards the other end.

Tried moderation

Yep, tried the moderation bit. I was so reluctant to give up my lovely alcohol and it’s seductive sensations that I was determined to control and master it. I counted units, kept bar graphs, had reminders on my phone to keep track of my drinking but all to no avail. Once I was in the pub or opened that wine, felt that first pleasurable wave of comfort, little voices would start saying, “You deserve this Jim, don’t become a miserable bastard like those abstainers, enjoy yourself- go on – have a drink boy.!”

So what’s different about me?

Yes this is the crux? Why do some people develop a problematic relationship with alcohol whilst others are fine? It will be a different answer I suppose for each drinker who develops a problem although there will be many things in common. For me it was growing up in a drinking culture, being anxious around girls, having an addictive risk taking personality, lots of reasons. But the reasons are, in a way, not important – I am where I am. Knowing what I know, I can now safely say that I need and want to try giving up alcohol completely.

Abstinence is easier than moderation

In January I had to lower my cholesterol. My doctor was suggesting statins. I didn’t want that and said that I’m sure if I cut out booze I would lose weight and less weight and no booze would bring my cholesterol down. It worked. I gave myself three months and my cholesterol lowered. I went back to the doctor but she said risk was still there due to a family history of heart attacks. back to square one and I thought,”why did I bother?” and started drinking again. But during that three months I noticed some strange things and that is what helped me reach my conclusion to stop drinking in three weeks time. More of that next time. This post has gone on long enough!

Thanks for dropping by

Jim x PS any constructive criticism/advice on blog (layout/content/organisation what’s missing) gratefully received

Song to check out – “I drink” by Mary Gauthier. Now an ex drinker. Great song by a great lady- one day I shall attend one of her songwriting workshops!