Day 2

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, house move, financial difficulties, job stress. Global pandemic. Nothing out of the ordinary. Actually I have a very happy life. 

I'm 35. I have 3 beautiful children, a wonderful husband, a job which I love and for which I am greatly appreciated and highly respected. It even fits in with the family at 25 hours a week. I have a nice home - not a palace, but perfectly decent. I'm even pretty attractive, according to society's beauty standards.

But I have been drinking more and more. Every day. 

Confession: I don't drive the school run. I tell anyone who will listen that it's because we are an active family - and my rather toned physique supports this lie. Actually it's not a lie - I have an unhealthy relationship with calories in and calories out and the 200kcals my fitness watch tells me the school run burns is enormously helpful. But really? I've usually had my first drink by then.

Correction: had. I HAD usually had my first drink by then. Because at the start of this year, I quit drinking. A week later, I quit again. Then again 3 days later. So many failed attempts. But, trying to see the positive, there is now so much guilt attached to drinking that I rarely do it before 7pm, and for the past few weeks my daily habit is more of a three days a week habit, followed by hours of self-hatred and solemn promises.

There will be more such confessions, I'm sure.

I'm so ashamed of myself.

But there I am. At the end of day 2. Sober. Or to put it another way, not at all anaesthetised. Completely conscious. Totally awake. It does mean that I am completely aware of The Debate. Some people seem to call it the Wine Witch. I have not yet graduated to anthropomorphising this part of my brain, so I call it The Debate. The 'will I' 'should I' 'can I' which rages at merest hint of a thought about my anaesthetic. There's historically only one thing which silences that debate.

I know I have a problem.

I don't know why. 

And perhaps the 'why' I need to anaesthetise myself daily from a life which appears to be happy and functional is something which I will unpack at some point.

Today I am conscious.