Abstaining from alcohol in a world seemingly bursting at the seams with badness takes a badass attitude and plenty of guts.
Everywhere you turn on this polarising planet there are tales of atrocities; evidence of wrongdoing; scenes of chaos. Injustice. Abuse. Violence. Disease. Death. And that’s just Facebook.
So when we get to the supermarket and it doesn’t have enough toilet paper in stock it tips us over the edge. We can’t deal with this shit. Literally.
It’s not exactly a surprise that in an environment where so much can - and does - hurt us, physically and emotionally, on a daily basis, we seek out ways to reduce the impact of those constant knocks.
If you were set upon by a bunch of thugs on the way home from a night out (remember those?) your instinct would be self-preservation: you’d likely cover your head with your arms, and if knocked to the floor would curl into the foetal position, as a hedgehog would - or maybe an armadillo. Only we don’t have spikes to protect us, nor a shell. Instead, we have to find other forms of protection, other types of armour; ways to shield us from the tough business of being out in the world. We develop coping mechanisms; avoiding dangerous situations, and threatening people. We make our houses secure. And once our basic needs are met: food, shelter, clothing, safety - we can turn our attentions to the next level of human requirements, as depicted in Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs: belongingness, and love.
Only that’s fraught with danger too. As Shakespeare acknowledges: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
With all these challenges, is it any wonder that we humans feel the need to step outside of the physical confines of our mortal bodies from time to time, to anaesthetise ourselves with noxious substances, to poison ourselves with drink and drugs in order to escape from reality, to “get out of our heads” as a release, a mini-break from the perilous business of ‘being’?
No wonder drinkers view non-drinkers with suspicion - how on Earth can anyone withstand the conveyor-belt of challenges that life throws at us without alcohol? Are these people mad?! Surely only crazy folk would attempt to go out into the world without their comfort blanket of booze? Are these sadists really planning on going to war without the fortifying armour that is gin, or vodka? Seeing as it can be found so readily and conveniently available at Tesco, why on Earth would you decline?! And seeing as it is so readily available, how can it be wrong?
So many questions posed by puzzled partakers of poison, of which I myself was one until only recently. Surely saying no to a soothing Sauvignon to get you through tough times is akin to striding off to the Somme without a tin hat and rifle - something only an utter nutter would attempt?
Indeed, as a drinker this was my view too. If something exists that takes the edge off life, why say no to it? Well, as I’m only now discovering, for that exact reason. Because drinking does take the edge off. It stops you feeling. And humans were designed to feel.
As a drinker, any occasion would be a reason to drink: because I was happy; because I was sad; because I was anxious, or stressed. I would drink to celebrate; commiserate - out of joy, or fear. When you remove that mind-numbing liquid from the occasion, whatever it may be, you actually have to experience all those emotions. It’s very real. And very raw. It’s also essential if you are to grow as a person.
Once your physiological and safety needs have been met in life, you can focus on friendship, family, intimacy and connection. But doing so through a haze of alcohol masks the true intimacy, the deeper connection. I thought I was experiencing those things, but it turned out I was mostly doing so through a fog of alcohol-induced forthrightness and nonsensical babbling that wasn’t anywhere near as meaningful or heartfelt as I imagined at the time, nor as intense as some of the conversations and experiences I’ve since had - whilst completely sober. Not to mention that I have forgotten many of the drunk ones, which are buried so deep in the cobwebbed recesses of my mind that I doubt they’ll ever be retrieved - except perhaps in the replaying of them during the final moments of my life.
What I’ve learnt since giving up alcohol is that rather than expand my mind and my relationships, alcohol may have actually stunted them, as it has my own personal growth. I’m not saying I’m an emotional retard (I may be a retard, but I’m not an emotional one ;-) ), but I definitely would agree with the statement that alcohol is a mask we use to hide behind. It stops us having to experience all those difficult ‘emotion’ thingamajigs that us Brits in particular shy away from - especially the old school generations whom we learned our behaviours from: our parents and their forefathers who viewed showing any kind of emotion, any chink in the armour, as weakness.
Now that I’m sober I feel a strange combination of strength and vulnerability - as though I’ve just discovered a superpower that I’m getting used to, and am trying out on people for the first time. I make more eye contact. I speak from the heart - yes, even sober. I actually cried whilst watching a film last night, ffs! (I was alone, I’ll admit - but it’s a start). As someone who is not known for big displays of emotion (please don’t kiss me in public, or even give me a hug, as I am likely to stiffen from the alien awkwardness of it all) this is HUGE.
People often mistake me for a cold-hearted motherfucker. Cool. Able to roll with the punches. The strong one. This could not be further from the truth. Inside, I’m still that insecure little girl who used to cling to her mum at the school gates. The one who, in later years, was so filled with self-doubt that she would be physically sick before every exam (I would quake with fear as I walked into the assembly hall, stinking of fresh vom - before leaving school with top grades). I am still her - despite my booming voice, my throaty laugh, my apparent self-confidence and take-everything-in-my-stride attitude. I am weak. I am real. And I finally have enough self-esteem to own that. And that has largely come, in a relatively short period of 3 months, from quitting alcohol.
I am finally owning my faults, and confronting them. I am finally acknowledging my fears. I am finally feeling all the feels. And rather than feeling weak, it makes me feel strong. Rather than being trapped by my insecurities, I feel freed by them. I am not perfect, nor do I claim to be. I wouldn’t want to be. I am a perfectly imperfect human, finding my way.
We are constantly hearing the term ‘circuit breaker’ at the moment, in relation to a lockdown aimed at halting the spread of coronavirus - an expression which has been circling in my head in recent weeks. A circuit breaker is a safety feature whose purpose is to stop the flow of energy in an electrical circuit. But what if we could divert the flow of energy away from self-destruction, disappointment, misery in a wider sense? A large-scale safety feature to protect society.
Unlike my forefathers, I don’t want to continue the cycle of using alcohol to mask my emotions. Like a circuit breaker, my mission now is to divert energy away from alcohol-fuelled pursuits, thus breaking the circuit - the cycle - for future generations of my family. I may not have any children of my own, but I have a nephew and other youngsters in my life who I hope that I can influence in a positive way, and show them that they don’t have to blindly follow in the footsteps of an alcohol-fuelled culture of socially-acceptable self-destruction.
By learning from my mistakes, leading by example, expanding my horizons and my mind to improve my life, I hope that I can in turn help improve the lives of others in some small way. The greatest gifts I can hope to pass on to my nephew (as well as my house and everything in it) are those of self-belief and self-confidence; things I have always lacked, deep down. These come from within, and by taking care of your physical and mental health - not from external sources, such as material goods. And certainly not from alcohol.
What if we could move to the top of Maslow’s pyramid of needs, to seeing the beauty in everything and reaching the absolute pinnacle: self-actualisation (something Maslow estimates only 2% of people achieve)? How amazing would that be?
The pandemic has given me the time to press the pause button on my life; to step off the merry-go-round and take stock. It has been the circuit-breaker I needed to give up alcohol. The pandemic tripped out my social life; blew the fuse on fun. But it’s also given me the breathing space to reassess my behaviours and make positive changes to the habits I rarely questioned before. The circuit-break is complete.
Thankfully, I didn’t require bumbling Boris to sign it off, to tell me it was the right thing to do. (Let’s face it, he’d have probably advised me to “Give up, don’t give up, maybe just give up on weekdays...or not at all....”).
No. Only I held the power. Only I could flip the switch. Only I could break the circuit; halt the cycle.
And it also begs the question: had the pandemic not happened, would I have ever triggered this circuit-breaker? Who knows...
If nothing changes, nothing changes.
Day 90 - feeling amazing...and amazed! What a difference 3 months makes 😌.
Sam x
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