Part 2 of 2: My first sober holiday: Regaining control.

On day four of our gorgeous week-long holiday in Majorca I am absolutely fucked off and hating everything - mainly how I look and how sober I feel.

In Catherine's book she writes about the importance of alone time so I decide to take some. And it seems thrashing it out on a treadmill for half an hour in a grubby non-air conditioned Spanish gym actually works. Just having some space away from Rob and his poolside beers reminds me that I can simply choose another path. And me wanting to be away from people/Rob has absolutely nothing to do with me hating on them in any way - I just simply love being alone and feel it's so important to distance yourself from things that are bothering you as and when you can. I needed to faze my miserable holiday funk out and a hot run in the hotel's dungeon gym was helping.

Just this tiny window of alone time helped me to shake off the negs and reboot 'relaxed and chilled holiday Em'. She's new. Drinking holiday Em would be having a wine-fuelled siesta by now and awake in a pool of her own drool.

After my run I showered and wandered back to the pool and suggested to Rob we find somewhere chill for dinner and hit the hay early to go on a morning hike. I was still very stressed and tense about dining in a hip cool restaurant with gin menus and cocktails so I decided to plant the seed before he stumbled across anything mildy swanky on Trip Adviser. I thought he'd swat my suggestion away as when I said it out loud in the 33 degree heat it couldn't have sounded less fun and appealing. 

'Sounds great, totally up for a cheap dinner and being active babe.' Relief! Exactly what I wanted (and desperately needed) to hear. That night we ate pizza, wondered back to the hotel with a kilo of churros and watched the new Avengers movie in bed before calling it a night at 11.30 p.m....it was actual heaven.  

After a sweaty two-hour morning hike, many swims and a sunset coffee on the balcony I was finally feeling better. Day five had me remembering the importance of staying strong and I could feel the sober glow trickling back into my veins. The storm clouds had passed and I was well and truly back in the sunshine. I actually took a selfie to capture the moment...maybe one day when I'm brave enough, I'll share it.

Everyday of sobriety is different but it's so vital to remember the darkness will eventually pass. I couldn't get Blix out of my head for the first three days of my holiday, chipping away at my vulnerability and desperately urging me to throw in the towel. I felt suffocated, trapped and completely out of my comfort zone. Holiday drinking was the ultimate package, the dream, the familiar reward after a year of solid working! And I knew my first sober trip would be hard, but I genuinely underestimated just how fucking hard it would be. 

I was constantly terrified that I'd ruin Rob's trip as a result of my non-drinking. Constantly comparing myself to other people and their seemingly amazing holiday chat and beers. But when we returned home his report of me, sober holiday Em, was quite glowing. Apparently Rob loved the early nights, active mornings and lazy afternoons. He was even chuffed that as a result of my sobriety he only suffered one hangover throughout the entire trip. Did I hear that right...? Am I starting to become a good influence?

There were moments I genuinely wanted to crawl under a rock and cry/die - mainly when I clocked other couples laughing and playing with the stems of their wine glasses. Meh, dicks. I was so wrapped up in my own warped world - a world where Rob would shout at me for not drinking and tell all his friends that he's married a dud.

Maybe there will come a time where he gets fed up with my sobriety, I'm not sure, but a week in Majorca certainly wasn't a deal breaker (as much as I thought it would be).

Part 1 of 2. My first sober holiday: The death of drunk holiday Em and subsequent mourning.

So it's Tuesday, 28th August 2018 and I'm 51 days sober. And I've just completed my first holiday sans booze since I was roughly...15.

Before I went away I drafted the (since modified) title of this blog post which is a little trick I do to help me stay on the straight and narrow. If I have a major trip, event or occasion approaching I tend to find that noting my desired outcome before it's even happened is a really powerful tool - it keeps me focused and determined. Writing down your goals (and ultimately achieving them) is an age-old tactic, but when it comes to sobriety I feel it's a seriously smart move.

I didn't really know what to expect from sobriety abroad. As I've previously mentioned, I feel like I'm somewhat in limbo at the moment and I don't feel as if I've earned my teetotal stars. So for now, I'm simply an adult taking a break from the hangovers.

In truth, I'm not ready to tell people the truth. That my drinking has/had spiralled out of control, that I had started to hide my increasing consumption from my husband, that my hangover anxiety was rapidly suffocating almost every day of my working week. And they're just the headline sirens.

Cue lengthy blog post...

The day before we flew (Aug 17, 2018) we were at Rob's friends' wedding, which I confidently did sober and had no problems doing so. "So well done for not drinking Em but you're obviously going to drink on holiday, right?" was a question I heard countless times - and one I totally anticipated. My previous abroad instastories have been undoubtedly sponsored by late night shots, cocktails and hangover pool days, and deep down I was (seriously) nervous about being sober with my husband on holiday. Since we've been together it's never, ever happened.

And the more I thought about it the more anxious and alone I felt. For the first time in my life I wasn't looking forward to going on holiday and I'd started to work myself up - a lot. Inner booze voice enter stage right:

"Rob is going to think you're SO dull!"
"What are you going to do or even talk about? Drinking on hols is your bonding time!"
"How fucking boring and selfish are you? Leaving Rob to drink alone!"
"You're so ungrateful, Rob's paid for this holiday and you're not even going to enjoy it!"
"Happy knitting, Grandma!"
"Rob is going to run off with someone who drinks that is way more fun than you!"

*Inserts sad tear face and pile of shit emoji*

Two great sober champions - Catherine Grey and Clare Pooley (among others) - have written about their inner booze voice as an evil and unwelcome being, constantly scratching at the sober door and attempting to devour ones very best intentions. Until my holiday I hadn't been bothered by this voice, but as I sat poolside on day one of our sunshine-drenched trip the darkness came knocking, hard. Catherine calls hers Voldemort and Clare relates to the Wine Witch. Everyone, please be introduced to my horrific by-product-of-booze brain demon: Blix.

Named after the most black-hearted and ruthless goblin from the 80's fantasy epic, Legend, Blix's main goal in the movie was to kill the unicorns for the Lord of Darkness - so a complete prick as you can imagine. And he's hideous. There is no doubt my voice is Blix.

At 11.00 a.m. aka beer o'clock Rob asks me if I fancy a drink and I reply 'maybe, perhaps just a diet coke for now"? WHY CAN'T I JUST BE HONEST AND SAY 'NO, ACTUALLY DARLING I THINK I'M ADDICTED TO ALCOHOL AND NEED TO STOP THE BOOZE BEFORE IT STOPS ME, US, AND EVERYTHING ELSE GOOD IN MY LIFE.'

So what I thought was going to be a spectacularly blissful glittery retreat of health and tanning and activeness and glow and joy was quickly evolving into a very unpleasant experience. I felt like an ant being fried under a magnifying glass.

Having avoided alcohol on day one, Rob broached the subject of my non-drinking at dinner on our second evening. We had reservations at a beautiful restaurant called Nautilus which is nestled in the cliffs of Soller, Majorca. Once our drinks order was placed he asked me again about my sobriety and queried my count of non-drinking days. I shared my Nomo app with him and said I was using it as a useful tracking tool. At this point my shoulders felt slightly lighter...I'd just shared my sober tracking app with Rob (day 44. whoop) and he didn't freak out and call me a crazy alcoholic. Until this point I'd kept my little tracker a secret - and now he seemed pretty interested.

I was hoping a moment would present itself to talk openly and honestly about my break from booze and this was it. As I started to hint at my increasing hatred towards alcohol I became distracted by the waiter behind me - he was recommending the very best and most expensive red wine to an elderly couple who seemed to be enjoying letting the whole restaurant know how rich they were. The guy was literally shout-talking about how pleased he was to not have to 'view the yacht tomorrow.' Barf/so jel/kill me.

Becoming panicked by the thought of baldric and blue rinse being a shite tonne more fun than me, I found myself being all ambiguous and irritating again. 'So yeah, I'm just still digging this whole sobriety thing! I know I'm being really boring but I promise I'm still fun! I'll probably end up drinking tomorrow, lol!" In truth I just wanted to jump off the cliff we were perched on and land in the sun. I had never eaten at a more beautiful restaurant but I simply wanted to die. I was consumed with jealousy over other diners, their drinks orders, their conversations, their flirting, their better life. I swiftly started to resent my soft drink and was seriously contemplating wine. If they can enjoy booze, why can't I?

Until, that is, Rob delivered a few home truths. After I seemingly side stepped the perfect opportunity to be honest about my downward drinking spiral I found my husband offloading a number of concerns centred on out-of-control Em. 'Do you know babe, the worst thing about you drinking is when you lose your eyes. You get an absent glaze which I can't stand as you literally look like you're on another planet. I can't talk to you when you're like that.'

Hmmm...

I bit the bullet and responded with a question which required some serious courage. 'What else about me don't you like when I'm drunk'? Up until now I would literally do anything to avoid Rob recalling tales of me pissed and embarrassing, yet for some reason I felt now was the time to ask.

'You get to this stage where you just don't listen. Like if we have some friends round you get stupid and turn the music up full blast with zero respect for the neighbours. I ask you to turn it down and you do, but 10 seconds later you crank the volume up again and think it's funny. You just get really...annoying.'

OK, not too bad.... 'Anything else...'?

'Look Em, I don't want tonight to go down this route as you always get upset and angry at me, so let's just enjoy the view and have a great night'.

Rob was completely right. In the past when he's tried to broach my behaviour I've either lashed out or...lashed out. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't, but the long and short of it has always been me making excuses for my behaviour and shifting the blame. A favourite? 'Well you're my husband why the hell did you let me drink that much?!' Enter full blown heated couples row, stage left. Day ruined.

They don't call sobriety a journey for nothing. Since dropping tools in early July 2018 I have learnt so much about myself and have had to face some pretty horrendous flash backs. Strangely my recall has been sharper than ever since ditching the grog and I'm remembering bits of my life that I assumed were long buried/dead in my limbic system. Like the time I shared a joint with a homeless man in a doorway after clubbing in Reading. How sanitary. Or the time found myself on the phone to my dad, begging for a lift home after a wild night out, again in Reading. The latter doesn't sound too bad eh?...except I was 22 and hadn't called my dad for a lift since I was 16. It was 1.30 a.m. and I had experienced a severe blackout - I couldn't piece the night together pre-10.00 p.m. and came-to on the phone under the bright lights of Chicken Cottage, alone, without any of my friends.

My dad called me the next morning sick with worry to check I was alive. Apparently I was so drunk I couldn't communicate my whereabouts to him, told him he was useless and hung up. He couldn't call my mum to check I'd made it home as they haven't shared contact details since the divorce, so he essentially spent the night in a ball of worry and only got a few hours sleep.

When I finally answered his seventh call of the morning I told him to leave me alone as I was so hungover. To this day I have no idea how I made the 15 mile journey back to my mums (where I was living at the time) and still feel guilty about the way I treated him. And it's flashbacks like this that terrify me.

But I've banked Rob's concerns he shared with me at Nautilus and I know that my increasingly sharper brain will remember to discuss them as and when we're both ready to. In honesty I'm not ready to tell him I'm sober yet - even though I'm obviously not drinking which equates to being sober - but I'm not ready ready to announce my never drinking again to him. This is very much the start of something permanent for me but I need to treat it carefully. At the moment I feel like I'm prodding sobriety with a stick, like a curious child who has stumbled across a dead squirrel in the woods. 

After Rob shared some of his pet hates attached to my shitty drunk behaviour it took the edge off slightly. After all, I'd much rather be present and in the moment here, right now, instead of being a bottle of wine in and forgetting what I ate. However my mind kept drifting to the rest of the room and I started to really struggle, so-much-so I took myself off to the toilet and had five minutes to myself (and sat on the loo and cried).

Despite my foul mood we had a lovely evening and the food was out of this world, but it's in situations like this - where the setting is perfect, the sun is shining and you're sat with the one you love most in the world - where hysterical self-analysis kicks in and a wave of depression hits you. I think I was starting to mourn my previous drunk life despite being well aware of the negatives. Being out with Rob on holiday and not drinking just felt...shit.

The next morning I went straight to the pool and dived back into my holiday read, The unexpected joy of being sober by Catherine Gray, which undoubtedly has changed my life.

The more I read the better and stronger I feel for not giving in to a glass/bottle of red over dinner. I'd made it another day and I knew, had I let Blix convince me that one was 'OK, it would make me fun again', I'd be nursing a stinking hangover and would be sick-to-my-stomach from guilt. The holiday would have been ruined, however the day was new and I was still sober. From this point I decided to focus my energy on feeling better. The first three days of the trip I had been pining for old me and forgetting the disaster that is me and booze. Come on, Em, no more.

Btw - the original title I gave this post (drafted pre-holiday) was 'Seven days in Soller, my sensational sober holiday'. Wishful thinking, Dorothy.

Part 2 of 2 here.

My first sober wedding.

It's been one month and five days since I had my last drink, and it's the morning after one of my best friend's weddings. Thank, effing, god.

I'm going to try and keep this post as brief as possible as I know it could turn into horrifically long waffle. But the more thought I give toward the events that unfolded this weekend the more accomplished I feel sharing my first sober wedding with you. I DID IT. I've essentially survived one of the most likely weekends to derail my efforts and I'm unbelievably chuffed that I've made it to day 35.

My husband (Rob) and I have just spent the weekend in the New Forest for a beautiful wedding with a handful of some of my best and most brilliant friends. The last time I saw these girls was at the Brighton Hen Do (aka coffin/nail moment)...so I'm actually quite apprehensive about making it through the weekend alive.

We arrive on the Friday as I need to be on site early Saturday morning to help decorate the venue. I'm an event planner by trade so I lend my organisational skills to friends and family in times of celebratory need. I thought it would be easy dodging the booze on Friday eve but as soon as Rob and I arrived at the bar my friend encourages us to tack on to his order. Rob asks for a pint and I scrunch my face up and pretend to be 'gasping for something soft'. I actually couldn't be further away from being thirsty. So I order a sparkling water much to my friends disdain. 'If you're thirsty order a proper drink Ems, what's up with you?'.

And so it begins....

As I flit between water, coffee and some fancy Fever Tree tonic the comments on my sobriety begin to slow down, yet my Brighton hen do army seem entirely perplexed by my decision to not drink - and as a result I do feel somewhat 'outa the gang'.

Half my pals are convinced I'm pregnant, obviously, while the other half are pretending to be intrigued by my motives but are also thinking she's blates pregs. They all, however, enjoy me recapping on the events that led to me being off the grog (as if I'm trying to remind them that I'm still drunk fun Em...). There are big lols at the embarrassing memories and my friend bellows, 'Well at least we'll have Em back to normal tomorrow'... Eeep.

As I blame my sobriety (yes, as if it's a terrible thing) on wanting to stay sharp for wedding day prep I quickly realise everyone is counting on me to get drunk (and embarrassing) tomorrow....

The wedding speeches came to a close and Rob started to realise that I was tackling the wedding sober (even he thought I'd be back on it by now). And in his defence I haven't exactly shared my sober intentions with him as I'm even not sure myself that my sobriety is going to last. I don't want to be that person who announces their sobriety then three days later bam I'm drunk again. For me this is personal and I'm taking each day as it comes.

I lost count of the times my non-drinking was queried, to which I politely replied 'I'm not drinking yet, don't really fancy it' and quickly began to chat about something else.

The wedding made me realise that it is completely 'the norm' to drink - which is something I already knew - but I didn't understand just how much people calculate your worth on how many drinks into the day you are. As I watched with sober eyes the crowd began to change. I have always told myself I am never going to be a judgemental sober person but wow...alcohol really does turn people stupid.

At 11.00 p.m. I feel like I've completed almost every level of this new and exciting sober wedding game. I tried every canape and went back for the best ones (tempura prawn), finished all my wedding breakfast and savoured every delicious course, listened intently to the speeches and learnt amazing things about the happy couple's past, danced respectfully without falling over (and out of my dress), discovered a beautiful new first dance song and made a note of the artist, signed the guest book, sampled the incredible evening food and put away two slices of the most delicious Victoria Sponge cake I have ever tried.

In a parallel drunk universe this was me on the same day: Missed all the canapes because: prosecco, picked around my lunch as food cals came second to wine cals, pretended to absorb the speeches but was too pissed to be genuinely interested (grabbing extra wine at this stage over and above our table allocation), danced and fell over, spilt my drink(s) on someone important, skipped all evening food and cake, snuck away from my husband countless times to play the secret smoking game (which was fucking tiring - and I'd be that scrounger who would bum all my friends cigarettes) and then continue to navigate the rest of the night through black, blur and slur until my husband carried me to bed. Oh and not to mention spending horrendous amounts of money on buying drinks for myself and every other person (to try and make them as drunk as me). And 'Oh' again, Rob and I would then typically end the night on a blazing row which would be all my fault as I'm an irrational drunk and I'd wake up with zero recollection and want to die.

About two years ago I was at a wedding with a free bar. I drank so much I fell over one of the low walls sectioning off the dance floor and crashed into a table knocking smashed glass and alcohol into the laps of OAP family members. That's the last thing I remember. Good.

This time around, my sober self spent the day and night completely immersed in all that was important and it was frigging amazing.

One of the most significant parts of the evening for me was going to the bar at midnight after the band had played their last (bloody brilliant) song, and ordering some drinks with Rob (who is always a great composed drunk person). The bar lady let us know that drinks were only being provided to people with room tabs, which we had, but at this point in time the night genuinely stood still for me. Drunk Em would have kicked up a fuss for no reason, ordered another bottle of £40 fizz and charged it to the Monopoly money room bill. Sober Em looked at her husband, said one softy for the road then sensibly called it a night. What a win!

It was a strange feeling waking up on Sunday as in truth I didn't feel fresh. I was half expecting to spring out of bed, cleanse my glowing un-tired skin and skip down to brekkie feeling half a stone lighter. However I felt exhausted, headachey and actually quite slow moving. Maybe my body was programmed to expect a hangover and malfunctioned as a result.

It had been a hugely important day for me for many reasons. Wedding prep aside (which went superbly well) I was really feeling the pressure from booze. I thought I'd be strong heading into the weekend - which I absolutely was - yet I think my sobriety meant more to me than I ever thought it could/would. So much so that on Friday night I actually dreamt that I threw in the towel and cracked on with the Champagne - I could actually taste the bubbles. I woke up in a wild panic on Saturday morning and soon realised it was all a horrible dream, legit like in the movies. The nightmare was so damn vivid I could still taste the bloody booze the next morning, and it terrified me.

Failure anxiety aside, here are some of my learnings:

1) Answering honestly (or not honestly) about why you're not drinking is absolutely OK. People are either accepting (and if they're not, you don't have to talk to them about it again ever), not bothered enough to ask or too drunk to care - which is a win win win really.

2) Eliminating booze makes you appreciate so many amazing aspects of the day. I held intelligent conversations with new people and remembered every single best bit. I also dodged situations which were turning hairy. There was a very drunk woman who smashed a glass by my friend's kid's foot, didn't make an effort to clear away the glass and proceeded to light a cigarette by the buggy and blow smoke all over said child. Not a good look and she was loud and shouty. Triple annoyer (and could have easily been me if I was drinking).

3) It's not easy, I can't sugar coat that, but it does get easier. I feel like my sobriety is perhaps too much in it's infancy for me to say to people 'I don't drink' or 'I'm tee total' (as if I haven't earned my stripes yet - which I'm cool with) but letting people know I wasn't drinking did get easier as the day went on. My answers stopped becoming so long and waffly and I started to realise that my responses were completely acceptable. Although everyone still thinks I'm pregnant.

4) Some people will think you're judging them and make a huge deal out of your sobriety. Perhaps because your not drinking acts as a magnifying glass for their own issues (I'm not saying this is the same for everyone but I really felt this was the case for some people at this wedding). If you're anything like me you'll just want to carry on with the night and not be the talking point - but unfortunately you will get the odd individual that makes it their night's mission to out you as a sober person and think it's a worthwhile discussion point (to your face and behind it). But who gives a shit.

5) You may struggle to find a drink you actually like. This sounds like an odd thing to say but I've come to realise that drinking for me is a 'doing' thing. I like to have something in my hand that I can sip to make me look busy and give me something to do. However on Saturday I did struggle to find a happy balance. I imagine this will become easier over time, but the tonic waters and fizzy softies did become unbelievably boring after a while. I was hoping one of the bar staff may make an effort to snazz up my sparkling water with some freshly squeezed lime but in truth I ended up desperately missing alcohol post 8.00 p.m.

Roll on the next wedding which hits me in approximately six days time. Wedding season is completely bloody exhausting...