'You can’t hide from yourself,
Everywhere you go,
There you are.'
Teddy Pendergrass
So it’s been almost a month since I last sipped a Sauvignon and my most profound learning is this:
When you create good karma, life is calmer.
Since ditching the booze 4 weeks ago, every aspect of my life has improved: my physical and mental health, relationships, finances, the clarity of my thoughts - my outlook in general.
My inner voice, once so quick to push me off the path of peace and into oncoming traffic, has become a veritable cheerleader: more Mary Poppins than Medusa. She chirrups and sings like a baby blackbird, rather than hissing and spitting like a head of scornful snakes.
The change in my demeanour has been nothing short of remarkable - so much so that even my work colleagues have commented on their radically reformed boss. (Not that I was a complete harridan before, you understand - just a mildly pessimistic perfectionista slash stress-head).
When you feel a sense of quiet contentment and can look yourself squarely in the eye without a hint of self-loathing, the world shifts on its axis and becomes a completely different place: the once-grey landscape takes on a rosy hue. It’s like putting on the perfect pair of prescription glasses after years of groping in the dark, fuzzy-eyed. You see things very differently. Good thoughts lead to good actions, which subsequently lead to good reactions, from others...which results in greater contentment and a more joyous existence. Simples.
Instead of being coiled like a tightly-wound spring, the slightest inconvenience likely to make me snap, I’m currently cruising along the highway of life, arm resting on the wound-down window, chilled tunes on the stereo, silently admiring the view.
Gone are the Sunday mornings waking up bleary-eyed and belligerent, the previous evening’s events all a blur. Trying to focus bloodshot eyes is akin to trying to focus the mind on the shenanigans of the night before: nigh-on impossible.
Instead, I’m delighting in the experience of waking up with myself and, liking what I see, make myself a cuppa and settle in for a chat, rather than stirring from an unconscious stupor and dressing hurriedly, jumping into my jeans before slipping stealthily from the room, ninja-stylee, in case the old me wakes up.
Have you ever done that thing where you rouse from sleep with a sense of impending doom, not knowing exactly what happened the night before, but with the uneasy feeling that you may have done or said something you’ll surely regret...if only you could remember it?
So you tiptoe downstairs and survey the crime scene, twizzling your metaphorical ‘tache like Poirot as you search for evidence. You attempt to piece together the hazy events of the party, desperately rewinding your internal VHS (look it up, kids, I’m not explaining what that is), and pressing that clunky black ‘play’ button again in the hope that this time the videotape won’t get churned up and stop at the crucial moment. But nope, nothing. Everything’s black. It seems your brain’s CCTV went haywire and was accidentally wiped at around 0100 hours. Funny how that keeps happening. Oh well.
So you hit the mental ‘eject’ button with a sigh and instead go looking for clues: one empty vodka bottle upturned on the sticky worktop, two of Prosecco....hmmm...various dress-up outfits strewn across the sofa, old house music CDs frisbied around the room. Empty cigarette packets scatter tiny threads of tobacco like confetti across the coffee table. Wait, is that blood on the carpet? Omigod, oh my GOD...phew, no it’s just merlot spreading and congealing beneath that girl’s head. And who exactly is that girl anyway? And those other two unidentifiable corpses catching flies on the kitchen floor, come to think of it...?
Thankfully, the olden days of playing a mashed Miss Marple are well and truly behind me, replaced by golden days of running, reading, weight training and researching my new interests. My energy levels are off the charts; I’m getting shit done like never before. My skin is glowing, as is my aura. Suicide Tuesdays are a thing of the past. The cosmic law of cause and effect is manifesting before my eyes. Any bad vibes have disappeared: I’m a karma chameleon.
Of course, I might have changed, but that doesn’t mean everyone else has. My boyfriend is on the same wavelength as me: he’s no longer drinking either. We’re tuned into the same radio station (and no, it’s not Classic FM just yet), vibrating on the same frequency. But all of my pals are drinkers in varying degrees, and that’s cool.
Although one thing that’s evident when you’re not partaking in the party: the utter repetitive shite that sloshes out of the mouths of the sloshed. It spills out all over the gaff, like the wine that splashes from the glasses in their wobbly hands. (And I say that in the most affectionate way, having been the same scratched record myself for years.)
The conversation goes around and around in circles, like an old warped 7in spinning at 45rpm on the turntable, the needle stuck on the same spot for all eternity. There’s always the temptation for the sober one to reach over and quietly lift the needle, replacing its arm back in its cradle, bringing the ‘music’ of voices to an abrupt stop. But it’s really not my place. Better to leave the happy chatters chuntering away and slip off to bed, safe in the knowledge that they’ll have no recollection of any of the meandering conversation in the morning anyway, and the whole Midsomer Murders-style debrief will be theirs to reenact this time, not mine. I’m done with playing detective.
Do I sound smug? That’s really not my intention. I merely want to convey my deep joy at the discovery of a different life; a different side to myself. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, finding out that there are still plenty more to discover, even after so many years on this planet. Turns out I’m not just a one-trick party pony after all - there’s a whole gymkhana out there.
It’s refreshing to think that at mid-life I might have (God-willing) another life almost as long as the one I’ve lived so far to stretch, crack my knuckles and flex the new me. You don’t have to be the perpetual hamster in the wheel, never able to escape your mental constraints - if I can change, anyone can.
As Tony Robbins says: energy flows where focus goes. And if you keep thinking you can’t do something, you won’t be able to. Simple as that. Take smoking, for example. For 25 years I called myself a smoker. It was just who I was. Until one day, it wasn’t. At the age of 40 I told myself I was no longer a smoker. And overnight, I gave up. You can read my HuffPost article about that here.
So remember this: you can choose who you want to be today. Patterns, habits and cycles are made to be broken. Just like records. You don’t have to keep playing the same one over and over (although I’ve had that old Teddy Pendergrass tune on repeat in my head for weeks now).
I’ve broken my record: a whole month without alcohol. Will you break yours?
It’s time to stop replaying that same old scratched record. Flip it over: get off your B-side and start playing your A-game.
Sam x
Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:
Fancy reading my back-story before you go any further? You can find my other blogs at:
Comments
Post a Comment