Anaesthetised Life

I feel bored. That's one of my triggers, I think. I general feeling of ennui and a noisy, dissatisfied brain. This post by Sober Mummy has really helped me today:  http://mummywasasecretdrinker.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-obstacle-course.html?m=1 Every time I start to consider peering through the crack in the door behind which The Debate rests, I remind myself that I am scaling a wall and I do not want to start again from the bottom. I know that if I stick so much as a finger into that doorway, it could just fling right open and suck all of the oxygen out of the room I'm currently in. And then I'll have no choice but to crash through the door and fall off the wall. That's too many metaphors in one paragraph, isn't it? I am awake, conscious and not anaesthetised at all.

I have a few things I want to achieve. Currently one of them is that I want to move house. I'm always aiming for something. Never really living in the moment; always planning. When I imagine where I want to be in a couple of months, I think of a new house with a big garden, a sunny  July Saturday, barbeque fired up, kids giggling in the paddling pool and, yes, a glass in my hand. But I've just realised - I'm imagining a photograph, not a movie. It's a still. A snapshot. It's a single moment - that moment of relief when you sit down and take your first sip and all is right with the world. And it's like the image has increased colour saturation, has been blown up and printed on glorious shiny paper and has been placed, in a beautiful frame, right in the centre of my living room wall. So I'm going to try and imagine it as a moving picture instead. It starts with that perfect moment, the snapshot of the perfect day. The kids are happy, my goals have been achieve...

According to Claire Pooley, the brilliant blogger and author of The Sober Diaries, she couldn't have done it without her blog. It kept her accountable. I need some of that. So here I am. I shall assume that no one will read this. I haven't even used the words 'sober' or 'alcoholic' in the titles. I've chosen 'anaesthetised'. Because that's what I have been doing to myself for as long as I can remember. It wasn't always alcohol. During my teenage years, it was much healthier activities like ballet or homework. Then it was (and often continues to be...) food, either too much food, or dietary restriction. Then it was smoking. Then smoking cannabis, and finally a few years ago - alcohol. Why, I wonder, do I feel the need to numb myself? I didn't experience childhood trauma. I don't have a particularly high level of adult stress or trauma either. Oh, there have been some difficult moments - my dad's death, mum's cancer diagnosis, h...