Moderation doesn't exist

So I'm just over half way through Allen Carr's 'Stop Drinking Now' book and I'm kind of enjoying it and I guess not enjoying it. It's repetitive in parts, which I know is for a reason, and slightly...mysterious in others i.e. 'keep reading and you'll find out why...' Again, I can only assume this is part of the book's appeal. I just want the answers now, gimme!

But I'm continuing to read and follow Allen's advice, and one thing I am hugely grateful for is the book stamping out, in perfect English, just why drinking in moderation is not an option. Up until now I haven't really been able to put into words why I can't have 'just one or two', but this book smashes it and the analogies are spot on.

It's the question I get asked the most by friends and family. 'So this whole not drinking thing...it's not permanent is it? I mean, you'll drink again...surely?' My Step Mum said these exact words to me on Saturday when I told her I was fast approaching four months sober. And she genuinely looked worried for me. Deeply concerned that my life may never include an alcoholic beverage ever again.

She asked me this at a big family gathering I attended at the weekend. Every year my Uncle takes a large box at Ascot races and entertains corporate clients, business associates, close friends and family. It's a spectacular day that I've attended for the past six-or-so years now.

The year before last was probably the most drunk I've ever been around this side of my family (Rob's side have seen me much, much worse a few Christmas' ago). I made sure I took advantage of the free bar and didn't go home when I should have. After the races we went to the pub where I continued to drink, in the company of my much-less-pissed family, and blacked out in the taxi home with zero memory of the evening. The next time I saw my Uncle he discreetly told me I had one too many and that I embarrassed myself in front of one of his business associates. Still to this day I don't know what I did...but for my Uncle to mention it...it must have been inappropriate.

Being told I'd done something embarrassing while drunk with zero recollection of doing it. Story of my fucking life.

So last year I took note and managed to behave, but that's only because it was my friend's birthday party the same night and I didn't want to turn up wasted. So I paced myself at the races, graciously leaving in a taxi at 6.00 p.m. to journey to the local golf club. Fast forward to 11.00 p.m. and I was legless. The pressure of holding it 'together' during the day had turned me into a ticking time bomb, and depriving myself of alcohol at the races had only made me want it more that same evening. So I arrived in fifth, no actually sixth gear, and annihilated roughly three bottles of prosecco and however many cocktails. Rob didn't speak to me the next day and never told me why he was upset with me. 'I don't want to talk about it, Em. You clearly have no memory of what you said, so let's just leave it at that and not fall out again'.

I've never really understood why I can't 'moderate'. It's a word I've been struggling to get to grips with for years and only now, while reading Allen's book, am I understanding why this word isn't part of my language. It's because it's a myth.

Truth is, 'moderating' my alcohol intake - something I've tried to do many times in the past - has only lead to me feeling miserable, hard done by, punished and withdrawn. The fact that alcohol was still an option, yet I wasn't allowed it all the time, turned me into a crazy person without me even realising it. All my friends can moderate, why can't I!!

My often recycled detox would be to quit midweek and select only one night at the weekend where I was allowed to drink. As Rob and I lead such busy social lives I thought a one-night-a-week policy would be bullet proof. And of course, it wasn't.

The night I'd allow myself to drink would regularly evolve into an all day drinking session, with a hair of the dog (or 6) thrown in the next day to help me get over the previous night's events. Then, because I'd allow the booze, I'd let it seep back in to my routine slowly but surely. Like a deceitful lover I couldn't get rid of. The alcohol would be back and this time with a vengeance.

If booze remains an option I will always fail.

So as my Step Mum quizzed my sobriety I didn't offer a definite 'Yep, I'm sober, no more booze for me' response, but instead shrugged my shoulders, like I always do, and delivered an ambiguous 'not sure if I'm honest'.

Her eyes remained panicked and for a split second I thought I had grown two heads...but we soon talked about other things and quickly forgot about my sobriety.

Allen's book is essentially two fingers up to moderation and that's why I'm enjoying it so much. And the parts I'm not enjoying are only due to me being a petulant child wanting results now now now. I've always felt like I couldn't understand moderation as a 'thing', no matter how hard I tried I was just a hopeless mess addicted to booze that was never going to experience the holy grail of it.

But now I can see that it was never an option to begin with - I was simply missing the blaringly obvious choice of sobriety and now, finally, it feels like I'm starting to make the right choices.

Weird dreams and fangovers.

So I'm 61 days sober! Yay! And feel like shit! Boo! That's only because I had an off the scale dream last night and woke up with a raging hangover this morning. Well, fake hangover. Fangover? What is WITH them?

I've nearly finished Clare Pooley's book, The Sober Diaries, and I absolutely bloody love it. Despite Clare being a little older than me I can relate to her on so many levels. Except she has kids, is solvent, and hit the top of her career ladder aged 30. I'm 31 and launched my own business 2.5 years ago - so I'm still absolutely skint and remain embarrassingly tucked under the tax threshold (for now - PMA and all that). There are so many 'Ah me too!' moments in her book though and I love her for that reason.

So since returning from holiday a few weeks back I've made a pact with myself. Instead of scrolling through social media for hours on end (literally) gawping at nonsense before dropping off to sleep, I will read. Proper, papery, reeking of intellect books that will enrich my life and give me purpose. And the whole cosy-cup-of-tea-in-bed-with-a-book thing makes me feel infinitely more intelligent than my husband who prefers to play football manager in his pants. 

I haven't been able to put Clare's book down since I bought it a week ago. And without giving too much away, the pages document her journey of sobriety from day one through to 365 (I think, I'm currently on day 270 something). It's Christmas day and Clare is at church with her daughter. She's debating taking the communion wine and that's all I'll say as I don't want to be sued for copyright or anything! But if you're new to sobriety or simply enjoy reading other people's accounts of it (I can't get enough) then buy Clare's book and check out her blog Mummy was a Secret Drinker. Both sources have really helped me through some dark days.

Anyway, deciding to put the book down after reading about communion wine turned me into a crazy person last night. And I had two, very vivid dreams. The first was about cheese. My mum and I were eating blocks of it in my kitchen and it was laced with black pepper. It was some new peppery cheddar hybrid and she told me to tell me brother as he loves peppery cheese (?!) Is peppery cheddar even a thing? If not maybe it should be, it tasted really good in my dream! My kitchen cupboards were made out of the same cheese and my mum was also dressed as a mouse. Okurrrrrrrr.......

And the second dream felt like it was happening on an entirely different day. Rob and I were in our kitchen (no cheese this time) and I was perched on the work surface drinking a huge glass of red wine like I used to. He was asking me why I'd given in as I was doing so well, and I told him that it was communion wine and that it's OK as Clare 'drank it'. He then asked how I got it and I confessed I'd stolen it from our local church (the same one we got married in), so he called Father Richard and said I'd broken in and the next thing I knew I was being carted off by the fuzz in the back of a police car! Rob was shaking his head in disappointment as the sirens took me away.

All very odd, and not the first time I've dreamt about booze, but this morning I felt absolutely rotten, like I'd had a bottle of the stuff. I woke up at 6.00 a.m. with a hot foggy head and was gasping for water.

I've been doing some reading today and apparently there are a variety of reasons why addicts will experience drunk dreams even though they're ecstatic about their recovery success. So it seems my necking red wine was inspired by events that had happened to me that day. Yup. A trigger.

But instead of feeling like 'Oooooh, that tasted good. You enjoyed that didn't you? Why not have a drink tonight, it's Friday after all' I felt very uncomfortable and panicky - like I'd let myself down and I'd been stripped of my purpose.

My biggest fear at the moment is actually drinking accidentally. Halfway through our holiday I left Rob at the hotel bar to order a nightcap while I nipped to the ladies. When I came back he handed me my sparkling water and I went to take a sip. It occurred to me that the glass was half full and very flat. So I sniffed it and went wide-eyed - like...terrified Ainsley Harriet wide-eyed - when I realised it was alcohol. By complete accident Rob had poured his mixer into the empty glass reserved for my sparkling water and gave me his double Bacardi. The fool was drunk and got his glassware confused. We laughed it off but my gut was doing somersaults. What if I had necked it? After all I was super thirsty - it would have been a large gulp! Would I have stopped there? As I'm yet to disclose my full dependency to Rob I couldn't point out just how big a deal that could have been for me. So when my water actually arrived I smelt it, hard, finished it very quickly and ran away to bed to be away from the temptation.

So, constant fear of accidentally tasting booze and slipping back into my old ways is very much part of my day-to-days now. And of course, reading about wine and tales of drunk behaviour before bed is pretty much gold dust for Blix, worming his way into my dreams and playing with my insecurities like a master puppeteer. Hopefully, and in the not too distant future, Blix will be too weak play. Clare writes about her voice, the wine witch, becoming frail and comatose over time. I'm too excited for that day to land and will try my bloody best to get there.

And as I haven't been able to stop thinking about peppery cheese since waking up I am absolutely going on a cheese hunt today and may even treat myself to shopping at the Windsor Farm Shop on my way home from work. Posh cheese sounds like a very fair reward which I will enjoy with some alcohol-free red wine left over from last week's dinner party :) Dine out on that, Blix, you whopping creep.

Day 58: Thank God for DIY.

I never thought I'd say this but I am so, so grateful to live in a shit hole at the moment. Let me explain why.

In September 2017 my husband and I bought a house which essentially needed bulldozing. The sizeable bungalow used to be a property filled with bedsits for lodgers and having failed to sell at auction (even property developers didn't want to touch the thing) we snapped it up as our 'forever home' project. Potential/location blah blah blah. 

Having gutted half the house over Christmas and New Year we're now living in a sort of semi-finished shell with beautifully decorated rooms together with random stud walls and the unfortunate remains of the original squatters den. My dad calls the hallway toilet the 'Trainspotting bog', and yes it really is that vile. I assume he calls it that from its appearance in the movie however I imagine he's attempted to climb down it while wasted at some stage. Both my parents are heavy drinkers but my dad is a different breed entirely. The man drinks like a fish yet has never had a hangover in his life. A medical miracle defying the odds of science. A human cat with never ending lives. A total liability yet devastatingly lovable. A man who buys a limited edition Jaguar for his 60th yet doesn't have a pension. 

So yes, the house is going to keep us occupied for a number of years as we don't have the money to do it all in one go but as of late we've had a burst of progress and I *finally* have a new room to decorate, hurrah!

This one is special too as it's going to be my very own space of serenity. For the first time in my life I will have a proper grown up office and I'm insanely excited about it.

The reason why I'm thankful for living in a tip is that it gives me something to do. Despite juggling a busy work and social life I am finding it incredibly hard to spend time at home and not drink. For so many years my home has been my refuge, my base camp, my hidey hole. A place for me to stash booze and guzzle as much of it as I liked - with no one watching and casting a judging eye. 

Even when Rob and I would stay in and drink 'together' I was still able to put away more than he ever realised. In my final months of fuckwitery I had resorted to only buying white wine in green or brown bottles so that I could leave them half full in the fridge door...of water, not wine. Thing is I'd neck all the wine in one sitting - likely starting on a Tuesday - and top up the finished bottle so it would only look like I'd had two glasses. I'd then pour a little bit down the sink every other night until the weekend so I looked like a sensible, respectable and controlled drinker.  

Rob only drinks beer and has always hated wine (he doesn't even like smelling it), so he never cottoned onto my brazen stunt which disguised the fact I was swigging from warm bottles I'd hid at the back of a disused cupboard Wednesday to Friday. He once queried where a jar of Moonshine (a novelty purchase from the States) had gone and I told him I was having a burn up of old wood in the garden and needed it for lighter fuel (OK Bear Grylls). In real life I had buried the bottle in the bin a few weeks prior as I found the 60% proof substance mixed very well with slimline tonic and got me sloshed very quickly. 

I digress. But yeah, my home has always had my back when it comes to drinking. "Look, Em, a dark and disused cupboard that would be perfect for stashing a few bottles. Rob will never know!". If Blix, my inner booze demon, didn't live in my head he'd definitely be at home in the trainspotting loo. 

So now the option to slump on the sofa with a larger than large glass of Sauvignon Blanc is no longer available I'm desperately trying to fill my time with distractions. 

As I settle deeper into sobriety at 58 days sober I'm realising that my hands need to stay busy. Be it blogging, cleaning, eating (eeeesh, so much eating), I can't possibly let my hand rest on the fridge and reach for one of Rob's beers (they still occupy the entire lower chiller compartment and I'm considering asking him to banish them to the garage fridge as I find myself staring at them. A lot).

But now we have a new room to decorate and I'm buzzing. In February when I last decorated I hated every minute of it. The dust from sanding would get in my wine glass, the paint would clog up my nails which would look gross on a night out - gripped around my wine glass - and evenings spent doing DIY would inevitably chip in to pub time. Now it's a different story. 

I can take my time over the sanding, ensuring the base coat is perfectly smooth and really drag out the fiddly yet therapeutic process - knowing every minute I spend focusing on improving my home is another side-step away from drunk old Em on the sofa.  

Yes the house has a bloody long way to go but I'm so grateful it's giving me things to do as opposed to being perfect and clean and tempting to drink in. Don't get me wrong, I'd love for the bastard to be finished (!) but instead of viewing the renovations as an inconvenience I'm going to embrace them as a very welcome distraction from the wine witch.

And I can't think of anything better than squirrelling away in my cosy new nook - documenting my sobriety within freshly painted walls (I've always loved the smell) and googling countless stories about recovery and self-help (yes I am absolutely obsessed with other people's journeys and reading at the moment)!

Before we started to turn the room into an office it was an ex-lodgers manky wet room, covered in mould, damp and other horrific remnants that I'd rather not think about. Ewwww. The tiles would squish down into rotten floorboards as you stepped on them and the toilet was practically falling off the wall. If old drunk Em was a room in our house she would have been this wet room. Ruined by years of neglect and cracking under the slightest bit of pressure. State of her!

Now the space is being transformed into a haven of productivity and good energy at exactly the same time as I decide to go sober. Coincidence, non?! I think so :)     

Booze, I want a divorce.

So I've already posted a few early blogs but I'd like to say thanks for stopping by, chance or by choice. My name is Em but I'm blogging as 'Sober Symposium' for now. As I'm new to sobriety I'm taking every day as it comes and doing what feels comfortable (and remaining totally anonymous for now certainly does)! 

I'm on insta too @sobersymposium which is a prettier version of this blog no doubt!

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I'm on the path of (to?) sobriety at the overdue age of 31. Having endured too many hangovers, blackouts and face-melting embarrassing moments, I've decided to bin the gin and take a permanent break from booze. Today I'm on day 57. 

I live just outside of London with my wonderful husband of three years, and don't get me wrong they have been the happiest years of my life...but the darkest and most disappointing too. As my dependence on alcohol has grown my behaviour and personality is changing for the worse, and I'm worried that unless I separate myself from booze I may be facing an actual divorce in the not-too-distant future. 

I know this journey isn't going to be easy as I've been solidly drinking since I was 14, when getting hammered on four WKD Blues in the park on a Friday night was living. But now, as I write this sat at my dining room table with a raging headache and staring at a 2L bottle of sparkling water I know it needs to happen.  

As the days go on I'll update on my milestones, conquests and of course pitfalls - there will no doubt be many as I bimble my way through my new (and currently secret) marriage to sobriety. Yep, my nearest and dearest are yet to find out my real reasons for abstaining, however most just assume I'm pregnant which I was prepared for. Three years married, no kids and taking a 'break' from booze immediately equals raised eyebrows and 'bun-in-oven' whispers. I do want kids but I'm not quite ready for them yet. At the moment all that matters is making my new business a success which is a joke really as nothing has taken priority over wine since I can remember.   

I'll also be talking about previous experiences and my behaviour when drinking. I've never done this before but feel a comparison between then and now will help me to put my progress into perspective. Also I'm just going to talk about stuff as and when I feel like it. No agenda, just me. 

So here I go. Talking to you, the digital universe about my divorce from alcohol. Thank you in advance for being my therapy, and if anyone is in the same or similar situation I hope we can obliterate the booze demons together, and for good.